i guess it's been an industrious weekend, in a laid back sort of way. i canned 15 jars of meyer lemon marmalade (with lavender), which is always satisfying. my only complaint about this six hour endeavor is that the jarring part coincided with the start of the season premiere of doctor who (on bbc america). due to our crappy direct tv dvr being hinky we were forced to watch it in real time, so some of the middle 15 minutes it i only heard and caught glimpses of, but enough to still enjoy it. like the new doctor. wasn't sure i would, what with my resistance to change and all.

today i mowed and weeded the front yard. doesn't sound like much but we let the grass get way too high. attacking that with an old fashioned rotary blade push mower was no fun but i prevailed! now it only looks kind of culchie. in a few minutes i will hem drew's new pants. can't have him back at work looking all shabby in pants that aren't comfy. that wouldn't do at all.

tomorrow will be three months since devin died. i still can't believe it. with how sad i've been you'd think i would. you'd think it would be pretty fucking clear to me, but it still doesn't seem real in a way. i miss him so much. that doesn't even begin to cover it. when i think about never seeing devin again my whole body feels heavy and my tummy hurts. and i start to cry, of course. i think that's what i need to do... i think i need to go curl up in a ball in the bathroom and have a good old cry. i don't know why i like to cry in the bathroom, sitting on the floor with my back to the tub. maybe because there's usually an 80% chance herbie will join me, if he's in the house. or hitachi-san... they are vying for supremacy in the bathroom turf war. why it's such valuable real estate is beyond me.

i worry about my family, too. i worry about my brother and his wife, and son and daughter. i worry that they won't make it through. i worry that the pain of losing dev will change them for the worse. i worry that losing devin will be the horrible disaster that will keep on giving. i am afraid it'll be the tip of an iceberg of loss that my family will never bounce back from. it's already been permanently changed by devin's death in such a terrible, painful way. i don't want more of that on top of it. maybe we are more resilient than that but i don't know... i don't feel very resilient lately. just tired and stressed, and sad and lonely - isolated and generally friendless. i guess i just need to keep slogging on and see what happens, and try not worry so much, which is hard. i come from a long line of worriers (on my mother's side). well, i guess that's it for now... on that cheery note i shall leave to hem pants. it's always something.

pooped

i am pooped today. i didn't feel this tired when i got up but boy, my butt is dragging and the yawns are jaw-cracking! it was a busy weekend, though, so maybe i shouldn't be surprised. saturday i did a lot of gardening, which basically consisted of clearing out all the dead crap. there was a lot of it. i only hauled half of it out to the curb for recycling (or whatever they do with it). there's still a big pile in the garden. i did clean up the herb garden and dig out all the mint, which was taking over. digging out mint is hard, i can tell ya that for free! but i prevailed. the spearmint is going the way of the dodo but i'm keeping the apple mint, or some of it, in a pot. maybe i should go see if i can rescue any of the spearmint... we shall see.

yesterday we went up to san francisco. the weather was lovely and it was just a nice day to get out. first stop was the academy of sciences, which is always fun. we had a yummy but ridiculously expensive lunch there as well (it was a great ham sandwich, but still). then off to strybing arboretum in golden gate park. it's one of my favorite places in the park and drew had never been. it was fun to show it to him.

and today i rode my bike to work. bike to work = spring; it's official!

adventures in canning

note from the blogger: i made this batch over the president's day weekend and am only posting it this week (3rd in march!). due to technical difficulties (or my incompetence, which is more likely), i got held up with the pictures. the story is still the same.

i spent the long weekend making marmalade. meyer lemons are a hybrid, a cross between a lemon and an orange. it's sweeter than a regular lemon but still tart enough that you realize it's a lemon, not an orange. it also has a thinner, more orange-yellow peel. last week i spied a meyer lemon tree in a neighbor's yard so on saturday i went by to see if they'd let me pick some. turns out they have two meyer lemon trees and they also said yes, so i was in business. i went home, got a five gallon bucket, and commenced to pick a wee bit over 22 pounds of meyer lemons. funny thing is, to look at those lemon trees you'd never know it.

i made some meyer lemon marmalade a few weeks back with the lemons from our little tree, i think i had about 22 of them, funnily enough. so far as taste went i was very happy with how it turned out and it was my first foray into canning, which really isn't hard and is very satifying - so much stuff to show for the work. the one thing i wasn't happy with was the distribution of the peel in the marmalade. the recipe i used said to chop the peel by hand and it ended up at the top of the jar. once you got through the peel it was more like jelly than marmalade. luckily i found a different recipe that recommended using the slicing attachment on the food processor to slice the lemons and not only did that work much better in terms of distribution of the peel throughout the marmalade, it also shaved off what i am guesstimating to be two hours of work. woo hoo! i've never used the slicing blade before so i feel confident when i say i'd never have thought of that on my own in a million years.

the marmalade cooks...

i made two kinds of marmalade: meyer lemon with lavender and meyer lemon with vanilla bean. in subsequent batches i have made plain (at my dad's request), and a combo lavender/vanilla bean. drew likes the combo best, i like the lavender best, lucy likes the vanilla bean best. they are all pretty damn good, imho.

some of the finished product...

a closer look...

you don't like marmalade? neither did i, until i had my first taste of lemon marmalade. i started making lemon marmalade years ago when i was living in berkeley with regular lemons from the tree in the backyard but i didn't go so far as to can it. i'd just make a small batch and eat it until it was gone, then make some more. i like meyer lemon marmalade better. the thinner peel cooks up softer and tastes better; less pith = less bitter. since meyers are a little sweeter it takes less sugar - but regular lemon marmalade is still pretty effing tasty. i have heard from many family members i've send the marmalade to that they like it, even those who have never cared for marmalade. i suspect, like myself, they only ever had orange marmalade, which i've always found too sweet. i also made some blood orange marmalade that drew and my lovely sister-in-law, val, both love and say is their favorite. it's not my favorite but it'll do in a pinch. my plan is to never be totally out of meyer lemon marmalade, if i can help it.

i will get around to posting the recipe and instructions soon, but right now i have to go walk the little dog. marmalade is easy and canning is easy, too. i was all intimidated by canning but it's not hard, just time consuming. drew and i are planning our garden, which will be replete with heirloom tomatoes. canning some of those lovelies is definitely in our future

better late than never

i never did post a picture of my birthday cake, what with getting the news that devin was in the hospital and then, most unfortunately, having to go out of town to attend the funeral. it's the chocolate candy cane cake from the 2009 cook's illustrated holiday baking and it's amazingly good! some folks said it was the best cake they'd ever had and with the exception of the carrot cake recipe from my martha stewart cookbook, i have to agree. it's definitely the best chocolate cake i've ever had and i've eaten some good ones over the years. i got the squiggly candles at safeway after tromping to three party stores to get nifty candles to no avail.

this is a picture of what it was going to look like. i had planned to be just as fancy but once i got the news about devin i was on the phone with my parents, mick, justin, mary, teri and lucy for almost three hours solid, so i got a late start. i also had to tidy up the house, though drew really stepped up to the plate with the cleaning. he rocks! i almost ruined the white chocolate frosting with my impatience but luckily the freezer trick worked. guests for the party were already arriving and i was just starting to put it together, so i dispensed with piping and garnishes. i will make it again some day and it'll be really snazzy. i must say that mine had a lot more of the crushed peppermint candy sticking to it than this one, but alas! i don't think i got a picture before the candles were lighted and lights were dimmed and i can't find one online.

i did get a special birthday treat. diane, kira and shannon sang "happy birthday" to me in german after the first, english go round. that was really cool. i was so glad lucy and laurence's godchildren were at the party because they provided such uplifting excitement as only kids can. with everything else going on that day i don't think i could have enjoyed myself if they hadn't been there.

still don't know what i'm going to do with the bottle of champagne that mary and jeff gave me. i decided drew and i would drink it when devin woke up, but that didn't happen. now it just feels kind of, i don't know, tainted? as it is, it's sitting in my fridge, with the festive, curly streamers still attached. i guess i'll just have to think on it a while.

here is the recipe:

Chocolate Candy Cane Cake

Ingredients:
For the cake:*
½ cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder, plus extra for dusting pans
1½ cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
1¼ cups boiling water
4 oz. unsweetened chocolate, finely chopped
1 tsp. espresso powder
10 tbsp. unsalted butter, softened
1½ cups packed light brown sugar
3 large eggs
½ cup sour cream, room temperature
1 tsp. vanilla extract

For the filling, frosting and garnish:
8 oz. white chocolate, finely chopped
1 lb. unsalted butter, softened
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
1/8 tsp. salt
4 tbsp. heavy cream
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1¾ finely ground peppermint candies, plus extra whole candies for garnish

*I made three 9-inch cake layers, and increased the amount of cake batter by 50%. I made the regular amount of filling and frosting called for in the recipe, and it was just enough.

Directions:
To make the cake, preheat the oven to 350° F. Grease the edges of three 8-inch round cake pans. Dust with cocoa powder and tap out the excess. Line the bottom of each pan with parchment or wax paper. Whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt together in a large bowl. In a medium bowl, whisk the boiling water, chocolate, cocoa powder and espresso powder together until smooth.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream together the butter and sugar on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, 3-6 minutes. Beat in eggs one at a time, scraping down the bowl between additions. Beat in the sour cream and vanilla and mix until incorporated. Reduce the mixer speed to low and mix in the dry ingredients in three additions alternately with the chocolate mixture, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Mix each addition just until incorporated.

Divide the batter evenly into the prepared pans, and smooth the tops with a spatula. Bake the cakes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a few crumbs attached, 15-20 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through baking. Cool the cakes in the pans for about 10 minutes, then run a knife around the edges, turn the cakes out onto a wire rack and peel off the parchment paper. Turn the cakes right side up and allow to cool completely.

To prepare the filling and frosting, melt the white chocolate in the top of a double boiler until smooth. Set aside and let cool until no longer warm to the touch. In the meantime, beat the butter on medium-high speed in the bowl of an electric mixer about 30 seconds. Add confectioners’ sugar and salt, and beat at medium-low speed, scraping down the bowl once, about 1 minute. Add the cream and vanilla and beat on medium speed just until incorporated, about 10 seconds. Increase the speed to medium-high and beat until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes, scraping down the bowl as needed. Transfer half of the mixture to a separate bowl and stir in the cooled white chocolate until smooth. Add ¾ cup of the ground peppermint candies to the remaining frosting.

To assemble the cake, place one cake layer on a cardboard cake round or cake platter. Spread half of the peppermint frosting over the cake. Top with another cake layer and spread evenly with the remaining peppermint frosting. Top with the final cake layer. Reserve ½ to ¾ cup of the white chocolate frosting in a pastry bag. Frost the top and sides of the cake with the remaining white chocolate frosting. Coat the top and sides of the cake with the remaining crushed peppermints. Use the reserved white chocolate frosting to pipe a decorative border around the bottom edge of the cake, as well as decorative swirls on top. Garnish with reserved whole peppermints as desired.

Source: Cook’s Illustrated, Holiday 2009

beautiful darcy anne, my oh so dear friend for over twenty years though it feels like many more (did i ever not know darcy?), sent me the link to an article in the new yorker called good grief. as i just said to her in an email, i feel both better and sadder for having read it, but glad that i did. i'm lucky to have a friend like darcy. she helps me feel saner and i know she loves me when i veer off into crazy. fundamentally i don't think she really cares if i'm sane or if i'm nuts, and how many friends like that does a person really have?

the article talks, in part, about our culture's impatience with grief.... you're supposed to get through it and move on and if you can't, then at least have the good manners to not burden others. understand that when the vast majority of people ask how you're doing they don't really want to know and it's not even their fault. it's just how we do things. tomorrow will be three weeks since devin's accident. it's 17 days since he died and it feels like the blink of an eye. i suppose it is. being back at work is bizarre because i just don't give a shit. i understand it needs to be done and our bills need to be paid but who cares about research grants and quick vouchers? i can barely concentrate on anything except things that make me feel connected to dev and anything that interferes with that annoys me. half the time i want to hide in the bathroom. if i could i'd spend a month at home just being, which runs counter to everything i am culturally supposed to do. i'd sleep late and feel sad, and sometimes feel happy. i'd wander about aimlessly. the article mentioned that as something grieving people do and i identified with it so strongly. i don't know what to do with myself and i just feel myself drifting, but i can't do it as much as i need. it's easier to drift when everything is such a supreme effort. getting up is an effort. so is taking a shower, drying my hair, walking the dog, making dinner, doing dishes. talking. i'm exhausted and just want to wallow in it a while but day to day living interferes, and that tires me out even more.

moving on means different thing to different people, i suppose, but i'm in no hurry to do it. most people are talking about how the pain and sadness aren't so oppressive, so overwhelming, so sharp and raw and brutal. i know that will happen eventually even though it doesn't seem possible now. the things people say, the things i say to myself, just strike me as so odd... how do you ever move on, really, from such a loss? jamie died over six years ago and i think of him every day. every. single. day. why would i want to move on from that? why would i want to move on from devin? it just doesn't compute. it's not even realistic. i don't want to. i don't want to assure people i won't be sad forever, or manage their expectations that life goes on and that i get that. of course i fucking get it. i fucking hate it.

last night herbie wanted petted and instead of hopping into and then flopping in the tub like he usually does he flopped on the mat outside it. i petted his butt, just by his tail, gently digging my fingers into his fur. i petted his head, rubbing between his ears so that he tucked them down and back. it always looks to me like he's wearing a baseball cap backwards when he does that. when he flopped on his side i kept going, petting his chest, his side, even his belly a little bit, then went back to his chin and face and head. having beside-the-tub-time-with-herbie, petting him and listening to him purr like a motorcycle, was the best part of my day. i didn't have to re-assure him i'd be okay. i didn't have to feel self-conscious for being so down. i didn't have to worry that my delight in him was going to be misinterpreted as turning a corner or making progress. it was probably the only thing i did yesterday that wasn't an effort. i didn't have to do anything but enjoy how happy he was to be getting what he wanted and it was such a relief. i thought about how devin would have found herbie and his tub time so funny and how he would have enjoyed it, and how i was sad he never got the chance.

the beginning of after

i am heading home for california tomorrow. i will be happy to get there and see my husband, who left for home on tuesday, and i'll be happy to see the furries again but it is bumming me out. it is making me so depressed and sad. it's the first step on the road to life going on without devin and it hurts.

all of my family were here except my sister-in-law, marie, who had to stay home in holland with her and patrick's little boy. otherwise we were all here... from pittsburgh, from san jose, from amsterdam. it was great and horrible to see everyone. seeing devin in the casket... i don't even have words to describe just how terrible that was. seeing and meeting his friends and all the people who loved him gather for two days and then pack the funeral to standing room only... i don't have words to describe how incredible that was.

if a funeral can be neat, devin's was. we couldn't do what his dad, my brother mick, and his brother, my nephew colin, said he'd really like - a viking funeral pyre - but we did our best. we had ziggy stardust and justin sane, friends singing aeroplane over the sea by neutral milk hotel and playing irish traditional music. we had grandpap singing danny boy, love and farewell messages written on an irish flag, memories shared and even devin's own words that showed his zest for life. we gave him as good a send off as we could and i believe we did him proud.

he died in a fall, in an accident. it wasn't hit and run, a drunk driver, nothing like that. a fall, an accident, a piece of horrible, terrible, dreadful luck, and that helps. it gives me comfort, truly. he wasn't left for dead. he wasn't left like a piece of trash. people did try to help him and even though it didn't make enough of a difference to save him they tried, and that's what matters. devin was an organ donor. right at this very moment someone has his heart. someone has his lung. someone has his kidney, and someone has his liver, someone has his corneas (i think, anyway), and that does NOT help. that he's helping others to live doesn't give me the slightest bit of comfort and i always thought that knowing your loved one helped others to live would be some sort of consolation, but i was wrong. i know it's right, but it doesn't help because it doesn't bring devin back and it doesn't give his death purpose or meaning. someone else gets to live for a while because devin and the rest of us were robbed and brutalized. it's not that i begrudge them and their loved ones, because i don't. it's just they aren't my loved ones. they aren't devin and they never will be and that is a very bitter pill, indeed.

i love you devin patrick geever. always have, always will, and i will always miss you.

devin

in the generation after mine the geevers run to boys... of the eight grandkids, six are boys. devin was the third of my nieces and nephews and he died today. he turned 19 on january 17th, while he was in the icu of tallahassee memorial hospital. on the evening of the 15th of january he was, from all indications, the victim of a hit and run accident on the main campus of florida state university, where he was a freshman. someone hit him so hard they broke his hips, fractured his pelvis, broke and fractured his ribs, bruised his kidney and pancreas, mangled his spleen so badly it had to be removed, collapsed both his lungs and by the time he was found, caused almost all the blood in his body to hemorrhage out of him. at first we thought his head, at least, wasn't injured but we were wrong. two days after his birthday, after a CAT scan and and EEG determined his brain was no longer functioning, he was removed from life support. he was surrounded by his family and friends and i will regret until the day i die that i wasn't able to be there.

whenever a loved one dies everyone says how great they were, how special they were, and devin really, really was so incredibly, amazingly, wonderfully special. on both his personal and memorial facebook pages almost every single person mentions his sunny disposition and his wicked sense of humor. just like his brother, colin, he could have you laughing so hard it hurt, so hard you thought you'd never catch your breath. he was incredibly smart and could have done anything, really. he wanted to be an engineer. he was a sweet, loving, darling boy who i didn't get to spend enough time with. i let geography and money dictate how much time i spent with him and his brother and sister and my brother and sister-in-law. like everyone else i thought there'd be more time. i thought there was all the time in the world, but i was wrong.

so what do i remember most about devin? his smile. his laugh. how blue his eyes were. how tall he got! how funny he was. how he was the fattest baby and the skinniest young man. how much i loved that his birthday was two days from mine... i'm not sure i ever told him that but i did. i was so happy he was a capricorn, too. how he looked like the spitting image of his mom and his dad at the same time. his easy going, fun loving personality. how he and his brother, when they were little , used to bicker but how they always forgot about it and were soon thick as thieves again. watching him tease his sister, play with his dog, his delight at having the birds at butterfly world land on him. how much fun you had when you and your cousins were together... that was a delight to witness. i could go on and on and never run out of things to say. the hole his death has left in my heart, in my family, is impossible to describe. one of his friends wrote to him on his facebook page that a lot of her memories of him made her laugh but they all made her cry, and that is exactly how i feel. i simply cannot imagine the world without devin in it. it doesn't make sense to me... it never will.

i love you, devin, and i always will. i am sorry i didn't get to spend more time with you, and i'm glad that you seemed to like hanging out with me when we were together. you were such a blessing, such a delight, such a precious gift. my life is richer for you having been a part of it and poorer for your absence. there are not enough words in all the languages of the world that can express how much we all love you. how much we wish we had more time with you. i would trade places with you in a heartbeat if i could but i can't, and i hate it! so i'll just keep loving you, keep holding you in my heart, and hope that some day i'll get to be with you again.

psychomania

when i was a kid there was a pre-runner to hbo called hollywood home theater, to which our family had a brief subscription. it must have been a free trial or something because we were the last people i knew to get a color t.v. and my parents still to this day get basic cable, and only because regular pre-digital air wave reception down in the valley was horrible. the idea of them paying for any subscription movie channel in the mid to late seventies just doesn't compute with my remembrances of childhood. at any rate, there was this movie that we (molly, joe, justin and i) watched many times about this english biker gang who all killed themselves and came back from the dead to wreak havoc and mayhem. it had this super mystical element, as you can no doubt glean from the picture above of the biker riding around the misty, mini-stonehenge. you just had to believe you'd return from the dead as you committed suicide but if you chickened out you were toast, as one member learned the hard way. i was thinking of this movie yesterday, wondering what the hell it was called and if i'd ever manage to track it down again when, lo and behold, i came across it quite by accident on one of the movie channels we get just as it was starting. the stars aligning in this way could not be ignored so drew and i settled in for what was no doubt going to be a really terrible movie, as so many fondly remembered movies from childhood turn out to be.

we were not disappointed. psychomania was silly, terrible and completely fun in a so bad it's good kind of way. made in 1971 it was all tripped out style-wise. the leader of the gang, tom, was not the anti-establishment rebel i remembered but a complete loser thug. he thought he was an anti-establishment rebel but tom, i've got news for you... you were a loser. you do, however, look very, very cool.


tom, like so many troubled children, didn't have a chance. his mom was into some crazy mystical toad shit ...


...and his dad tried to cross over and come back but chickened out at the last second. at the start of the film tom and his crew kill some (no doubt) conformist, establishment dude by causing his car to crash which sends conformist, establishment dude through the windscreen. tom then goes home and tells mystical-toad-loving mummy and her creepy butler (or is he more?) that "we blew a guy's mind today". no one bats an eyelash at murder as a mind-blowing experience. is it any wonder that tom and his gang, the aptly named living dead, come to a bad end?

and what do un-dead biker thugs do to wreak havoc in 1971 england, you ask? they intimidate publicans, murder the cute girl who paid for their drink at the pub as well as those who came to her aid in pub parking lots, kill police at the police station while breaking out their un-dead comrades, and, by far my personal favorite, terrorize shoppers at a grocery store...


psychomania is more fun than a barrel of monkeys and not to be missed, especially if you loved it as a kid. you can still love it, albeit for entirely different reasons, as an adult.

dreaming of thanksgiving

yeah, yeah, yeah, i know it's halloween so i suppose i should be posting about that but to be honest, much as i like halloween and had the joy and delight of growing up in a die hard, spookiest house on the street halloween family (thank you big brother micky!), it doesn't really excite me all that much. maybe if i had little bambinos to dress up and take around i'd be more into it but as it stands... it's not speaking to my soul. don't get me wrong... i took great joy in watching it's the great pumpkin, charlie brown and am looking forward to the fun and merriment and what not, but it really doesn't excite me like thanksgiving.

thanksgiving is another matter altogether! i have always loved thanksgiving and at the risk of insulting my wonderful family in pittsburgh, i am really enjoying the having friends over for thanksgivings again since we've come back to california. family too, of course, since lucy and laurence are here and are awesome enough to celebrate with us, and this year we will also get the goodby clan! i loved doing thanksgiving at my parents' place in pittsburgh but i didn't get to do the cooking and that, for me anyhow, is the most fun part of the whole shebang. that said, i did do a thanksgiving dinner for our sorely missed dinner party friends every november so i guess i had the best of both worlds, family and friend dinners, now that i think about it. i was the official geever pie queen growing up and while we were living in pittsburgh and i get to do that, too! what can i say? i like thanksgiving meals and i like them a certain way so i end up doing most of it (control issues, anyone?). trump is always game for mashing potatoes, drew is a fantastic host who keeps everyone lubricated and entertained, and everyone pitches in at the hectic end. it's drew's favorite holiday and his enthusiasm and excitement have definitely rubbed off on me, but not enough to do a thanksgiving dinner every month, as he proposes at least that often. where there's life, there's hope. ;-)

so, what have i been dreaming of so far? a heritage turkey from the good shepherd farm, ordered via the wonderful folks at heritage foods. martha says if you get a fresh turkey you don't need to bother with brining as they're succulent to begin with but i don't know... i've kinda gotten hooked on brining. i think i'll stick with it. cook's illustrated is proposing dry brining this year but i hate anything that depends on loosening the skin to stick stuff under it. it's so easy to tear and then you're fucked, not to put too fine a point on it. i think i'll stick with the cook's country perfect roast turkey, which i've used before with great success and yumminess. salt pork - who knew? drew has requested the sausage, chestnut and mushroom dressing a la the good folks at williams-sonoma who still want too much for the much-lusted-after roasting pan. i'll do it as stuffing, of course, and w/out their $16.50 chestnuts. i'm going to get mine at our local zanotto's market; that's the one we go to on the site, as it happens. the chestnuts will be raw so i'll roast them, which i haven't done in a while and is half the fun. if you've never had freshly roasted chestnuts you are missing out on one of life's true gastronomic delights and they're super easy to prepare. sweet, warm, chewy roast chestnuts... i might have to do a trial run.

as for sides... roasted garlic mashed potatoes, this awesome acorn squash and apple bake recipe that i got from our new csa, farm fresh to you. i am super pleased with ffty... excellent produce and variety and they deliver! the potatoes we got last time were to die for. i wonder if i can request extras for thanksgiving? have to look into that. for veggies i'm thinking of martha's ginger sesame stir fried green beans that were such a hit at the dinner parties, plus something with broccolini. we love broccolini and i have to wonder just where it's been all my life until this past year or so. and sweet potatoes, of course. maybe the roasted ones from my low fat moosewood cookbook. haven't made those in a while and they're pretty darn good. sweet potatoes and squash both; too much? it seems sacrilegious to not have sweet potatoes but that'll be a lot with the squash. any opinions, oh gentle readers?

don't worry, i didn't forget dessert! i found a lovely maple bourbon pecan pie recipe in my martha stewart living cookbook last year that i plan to make again, though i was just comparing it to cook's illustrated perfect pecan pie and am making some adjustments, including using fresh vanilla bean instead of extract. i got some vanilla beans at costco a while back.... ten beans for $10, if i remember correctly. since they were practically giving them away i bought a bunch and really do want to use them. pumpkin and mincemeat pie too, it goes without saying. the wonderful belknaps will be joining us again this year so i hope dave is willing to tend bar again. our first year back he did so and regaled us with the wonders of the sidecar, a drink i had never heard of but now love. dave being the connoisseur and all he didn't just make us a sidecar, he made us three, all with different liqueurs (i think i liked the first one best). i hadn't eaten since breakfast and in a hot kitchen all day and was half way through my third when i realized i was getting rather drunk so had to stash my drink in the fridge until dinner was ready. good times!

i guess that's enough for the holiday after the current one, but ooh! i am excited! if you're in our neck of the woods be sure to stop by. i'm sure there will be more than enough.

the best stories are love stories

so i finally watched gran torino last night and wow! seriously. wow. drew wanted to watch monsters vs. aliens, and i'm sure it's good, but i insisted on gran torino and we are both glad i did. i was under the impression it was bleak and couldn't have been more mistaken. if you are looking for a film that is hilarious in all the wrong ways as well as a completely life-affirming love story (not boy meets girl love story but a LOVE story), rent that dvd post-haste, grasshopper. clint eastwood was a complete revelation... God, but the man can act. and direct!

so what's on my agenda for today, you ask? well, first off i am going to bake another loaf of cranberry bread. i used to have this great recipe for cranberry orange bread that i got when i lived in noe valley in san francisco (circa 1994-ish). they used to include recipes in the pg&e bill - don't ask me why - and the cranberry orange bread was the bomb. i lost it about ten years ago after many happy years of yumminess. curses! i found a a recipe that is almost the same. the first loaf was good, close but no cigar. i am going to tinker with the recipe and see what happens. i am also going to sand out and stain the minor scratches on my new-to-me mission style furniture. it's so pretty!!! i found a leather upholstered couch, chair and ottoman as well as a coffee table and side table on craig's list that we picked up for $550; a total deal. this is really nice furniture... solid wood and heavy as hell (not that i moved any of it! drew wouldn't let me on account of the gimpy back.) the chair alone would cost more than we paid for all of it and best of all, it will not trap cat and dog fuzz like the old couch did. while i'm sorry to see the old couch go, because i loved the style, i am not sorry to leave the slowly falling apart, fuzz embedded part behind.

and after that, who knows? it's a sunny, mild saturday and there is nowhere i have be at any given time... just a beautiful day stretching out before me, full of possibilities.

the long hiatus is over

almost a year seemed as good enough a reason as any to jump-start ye olde blog. if anyone out there might still care, that is.

life in california is treating me well, i am happy to report, though our cats are going to put us in the poorhouse. chiana has had vet bills out the wazoo lately due to what the vets euphemistically refer to as a "grooming accident" (my fault and yes, i am a terrible cat mom). of course it was after 10 pm so we had to go to the ER vet. now it seems tommy has some sort of infected bite on his face so we're going to the vet tomorrow. he and herbie were mixing it up the other day and neither escaped unscathed. the only silver lining to all the carnage is our aspca pet insurance. chiana's reimbursed bills this year alone (from the aforementioned incident as well as a sick-puking-episode) covered all of this year's cat policies (three), and who knows? maybe tommy's visit will pay for the dog's. the pet insurance itself is okay. i'd be happier about it but like any other insurance company they kind of suck. they discount amounts that they determine are "above usual rates" and then only reimburse 80% of what's left, to work out to a 55 - 65% reimbursement rate. it's still better than a zero reimbursement rate, but it's annoying.

there really isn't much else going on since we are pretty boring which, as i've said before, makes for bad stories but good living. it's not even halloween and i am already looking forward to thanksgiving and christmas! i got the latest williams-sonoma catalogue and was drooling over it like a pervert at a peep show. i am jonesing for their new roast pan but, sheesh! $280? is that really necessary? drew of course said "get it!" since he likes to encourage anything cooking-related and just likes spoiling me, but i cannot part with that much cash, even for all-clad. i am going to check it out at the store and compare the two sizes, then look on ebay.

i am also really excited about christmas, which is a change from last year. this year we're staying home, which means putting up a tree, decorating, watching christmas specials, listening to my charlie brown christmas cd, and setting up my fontanini nativity which i love in an almost co-dependent way. my friend sara calls it the club med nativity on account of the palm tree. i'd love to buy a few more pieces but i don't think i can indulge that whim this year, either. we have a few extra lambs and the shepherd carrying the lamb over his shoulders. i always loved that one as a kid.
and baking with my sister is another christmas festivity i am happily anticipating. we did the uber bake-a-thon last year, a good 12 hours of christmas cookie baking and decorating, last year. we decided we'd have to spread it over two days next time and that being the case i am going to make the mini panetonne from my martha stewart living christmas cookbook! i have been threatening to for several years but this year i'm doing it.

so, with christmas dreams and plans and roast pans on my mind, i bid you adieu. for now.

not quite in the christmas spirit

seeing as how i'm going home for Christmas next week you'd think i'd be bouncing off the walls happy and excited, and i am excited, but i am also gripped by a very big case of the blahs. i am kind of bummed out. i am tired. i am missing jame. i am not quite getting enough sleep, but enough so that i'm not exhausted, just a little tired. i am bored silly at work, which this time of year isn't surprising; it's super slow. it'll pick up again later. i tweaked my back in pilates class about three weeks ago and i am still not back to normal. close, but not quite 100% back, which really fucked up my ability to get the things done at home that i need to before we leave. at this point i'm about two weeks behind, easy. i have so much to get done before we leave and i get home in the evening and all those things i was going to do are just too much and i get some of it done but not enough. i kind of like having a t.v. and i also kind of wish we didn't, which will never happen so long as i'm married to mr. r. all i really want to do is stay home, sleep in, do some laundry and clean my house. oh, and never have to work again. i guess i'm just really ready to be on vacation next week, to be home.

that's another thing... this whole home concept. i was at my sister's the other night and called pittsburgh home, and one of the women there said it was only home if you'd move back and would i? and i said yes, in a heartbeat. so that leaves me in a weird place because i can't move back in a heartbeat since my husband, in addition to being allergic to the town i love so well, also finds the career prospects there exceptionally limited compared to here. which isn't a fair comparison, since ALL career prospects are limited compared to here, but you can afford to live in places like pittsburgh whereas here it's just scraping by. that's the really fucked up thing about the bay area and why i didn't want to move back here. you can make what anywhere else is a lot of money, 100, 125, 150k and still just be scraping by. and if you've never lived here it's impossible to understand. my dad hears how much we make and i know he doesn't get why we aren't rolling in dough. the rents are outrageous - we pay almost three times the rent of our last place in pgh for a third of space, and if we were still there we'd have bought a house by now. if we're lucky we can do that here in like, oh, five or six years. health care costs are more, energy prices are more... all of it is more except the wages, which are marginally more, but nowhere near enough more to compensate for the cost of living. haven't even been here two years and i'm already getting that "living in california exhausts me" feeling. fuck. fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

i hate feeling like charlie brown at christmastime. i am looking forward to making christmas cookies with my sister but apart from that, everything else that i need to do is just way to much fucking work with way too little motivation. i don't know... i am excited about making cookies. maybe there's hope for me yet.

i have totally fallen down on the blogging front. thanksgiving was great but no pictures this year, not a one. i tweaked my side/hip on my left side and now i am freaked out that i hurt my back again, since it's aching there, too. i seriously doubt that this is the case, but i can still worry about it incessantly. majorly unmotivated to do anything but loaf... ugh. thank god we're going to pgh on the 17th for almost three weeks of r&r!

brave little kitten

i know i am only the tenth zillion person to post about this on their blog today but i just had to post this video of this sweet little kitten who survived a horrific attack by teenagers who were kicking him around like a ball. can't even wrap my head around that; just reading the words hurts my heart. the video doesn't show the attack, just the cute little fuzz ball and the vet who did the surgery to save him. i literally looked at the link on the ccn site for like three minutes, trying to decide if i should watch it, and then i did a search and read someone's comments on a blog which indicated there was nothing more horrific (as if it were necessary) than the poor little creature after his surgery, which saved him at the expense of his leg.



sigh..........

and you know what? i don't even care what led these particular kids to do this, because by the time they're horrifically abusing animals like they did this one it's too late for them. they had some sort of fucked up things done to them, or witnessed by them, and now they have no empathy for other creatures and have embarked on a life of abusing others, human or not human. some of them will even grow up to be serial murderers of humans, which is why it's so important to treat animal abuse and cruelty like the crime that it is. find them and throw the book at them, contain them as best as can be done, because there's no way to save them. that i know of, anyway, and i'm by no means an expert on everything (even though my husband might think that i sometimes think i am!) perhaps i am being a bit too bleak, but it's hard to imagine how it's possible to rehabilitate anyone so callous and cruel that they would kick a kitten, never mind injure it so gravely that it loses its leg.

yet it's so very easy to admire the little kitten... curious and playful and looking to explore things. a terrible start i wouldn't wish on any creature, and he'll end up in a very good home with people who really love animals and will really love him. first thing when i get home (after feeding the cats their nummies - delays make herbie frantic), i am going home to pet and fuss over and be thankful for my furry little babies even more than usual.

Obama - Yes!!!!

YES!!!!
YES!!!!
YES!!!!

i completely stole that from an email from my brother, patrick, who lives just outside of amsterdam with his family. it completely sums up how i feel and if i'm going to capitalize anything on this little blog, the end of the reign of darkness we have fallen under qualifies more than anything else. whew!!!! seriously... i am so happy, so excited, so completely fucking RELIEVED!!!! i didn't know it was possible to be so relieved!!! about half way through obama's speech last night i started crying and just couldn't stop. 90% of it was sheer relief that, as gerald ford once said about completely different circumstances, our long national nightmare is finally over. i just didn't know how we could make it through another four years if mccain won and now i don't have to.

i am still kind of in shock. we have a black president - woo hoo!!!! this country will never be the same in ways that can only be great, wonderful, positive and thrilling! i never thought it would happen in my lifetime and i have never been happier to be proved wrong. i am so proud of this american experiment in a way i cannot even express, and i think of all the little kids who will grow up thinking that having a black president it totally normal, when everything in our history says otherwise. what an historic occasion, an historic paradigm shift. i love that these kids will think "why shouldn't the president be a black person? or a woman? or both?" it's just the first step towards finally starting to heal our country but what a first step!

drew and i were talking after he got home with the champagne - buying it beforehand was just too jinxy - while watching obama's speech and agreed that it felt so great to hear someone telling us we were going to have to sacrifice and work hard to restore our country, our world, instead of telling us to go shopping. what could be more crass, really, than telling a traumatized country to go hit the mall? but that's just what bush did. i distinctly remember reading how the president and first lady went to dinner at a mexican restaurant to let the country know things were "back to normal" when they were anything but and we were only just starting to tumble down the rabbit hole. i remember thinking "what the fuck do they mean back to normal?" it made my head hurt then and it still does now. i know that i am hungry for leadership that i can believe in, that restores hope to all of us, and i think obama can do it. as drew said last night, i am eating my words, even about the fisa vote (but man, he better fucking fix it pronto.) i think our country is so fucking starved for real leadership and is so worn out from the bullying, greed and neglect that bush tried to pass off as one and the same. i truly am more hopeful at this moment in history than any other... about my country, its founding ideals and principles which i truly and deeply cherish, and our place in the community of nations.

so say we all.

vote!!!!

this is it, folks. if you haven't voted early, get thee to the polls tomorrow and VOTE FOR OBAMA! i didn't think it was possible that there could be a more important, more nerve wracking election than 2004, but this is it. it's not just who is going to president, but which direction our country will take. our democracy is seriously imperiled and it seriously frightens me what could happen if obama doesn't win.

so go vote! as cesar chavez used to say, we're gonna pray a little and work a lot! let's do it!

like a love note from home...

anti-flag are up to their usual tricks... helping others, do-gooding, you know the routine. ;) if you are lucky enough to be in the vicinity they are holding a benefit show for the pittsburgh food bank on november 9th at mr. small's theater in millvale. there's a wee write up about it in the city paper, too. go enjoy the show for me, it's only $5! and don't forget your non-perishable food donation!!!!

i have been a terrible blogger this past two months... sorry to anyone who tried to read and has found the well dry. it hasn't been intentional, there's just been a lot going on.

i am cautiously optimistic about the election next tuesday. i found out that the usually utterly useless attorney general refused to investigate the voter registrations of 200,000 people in ohio, as that asshole in the whitehouse requested. shit, the guy is not only a lame duck, but has presided over one of the most incompetent, corrupt administrations ever, and he's STILL trying to steal elections. your time came and went, fuckhead. you stole your two elections unfair and unsquare, so how about leaving the cleaning up of your monumental clusterfuck to people who are actually interested in cleaning and can actually do it?

that said, i'm not counting on anything, mostly because the republicans are willing to do anything, including breaking the law, to get their way. i do think that the tide of discontent has turned so massively against them that their dirty tricks won't make enough of a difference, but i also have a history of supporting people and policies that, to my sensibility, are good, fair and sensible but leave pawns of the practitioners of the politics of resentment frothing at the mouth. it's really amazing to me how two people can see the same situation and come to such different conclusions. so, i suppose we shall see. drew and i are going to vote before work on tuesday, so we may be late if turnout is anything like they are predicting. i will then sport my "I Voted" sticker proudly (the stickers are one thing about california i missed and am happy to have again) and check the news like a madwoman for the rest of the day, praying all the while. i think it will be an even longer day than election day 2004, when i was a poll observer, and i was fucking TIRED by the end of that day. making that batch of sangria the night before was a very good idea... maybe i should do that again.

work has been busy, home has been chaotic. we got the last of drew's stuff out of trump's place two weekends ago, so for the first time in seven years drew has all his stuff in one place - our living room - and trump's house is all his own, which has left it a little bare but he doesn't seem to mind. i don't know how we did the commute from santa cruz for as long as we did. i guess you do what you have to do and you know that it sucks, but you don't fully appreciate just how much it sucked until you don't have to do it anymore. riding my bike to work is so much nicer, and i get to ring my bike bell, which always makes me happy! rainy season is starting so i don't know how much i'll get to do but i am enjoying it while it lasts. it only takes five minutes longer to ride my bike than to drive, and all that exercise!!!! :)

anyway, i'll leave it at that, and i'll try to be more consistent in the future.

priceless!

it's easy, sometimes, to think americans are idiots, stupid, gluttons for punishment or all three rolled into one. and then there are those other times when they pleasantly surprise, reminding one that the humor, ingenuity and color-outside-the-lines spirit of the american people is still alive and kicking. today that happy surprise was Rednecks for Obama. priceless.

check this out, it's brilliant. and kudos to the clever rednecks who started it all!

sorry to be missing in action; the moving thing has consumed my life. happily i can report that the house is 90% together. still a few boxes to be unpacked/moved out of the living room and lounge. the bedroom needs a bit of work... several "no where to put them just yet" boxes have been dumped there, and i need to find a home for all the crap on top of the buffet. mostly my crap, not drew's, i have to be fair. not ALL of the stuff in the way is his. he's done a tremendous job getting his computer stuff stowed and out of the way, i must say.

so the last bit of moving will be on sunday. hmmm... guess i better reserve a truck, huh? it's the stuff in trump's garage and then we'll be totally out of santa cruz. where we are going to put any of this stuff is anyone's guess, though i suppose the garage is where. too bad we don't have a nice, attached modern garage like at trump's place. we have an old, detached, vermin infested garage. i suppose old fashioned charm comes at a price, and ours is a funky garage. drew put out rat/mouse poison, so hopefully we will see some improvement there. die little ratties, die! having rats in california isn't quite the same as having them, say, in pgh, but it's still gross. with the climate being so mild rats live in palm (and presumably other) trees out here, so a place doesn't have to be dirty to get rats, just unattended. i'm guessing the people before us in our place either didn't use the garage much, or the rats made a remarkable comeback in the two months or so it was on the market for rent. at any rate, we are hoping a sustained poisoning campaign and tommy, rat family killer, will do the trick. don't worry... the kitties and zinger cannot get into the garage unless it's open and we're really on top of keeping them out when it is. that's the last thing we need, believe me.

how we did the commute from santa cruz for so long is beyond me. it seems so far and such a hassle away. on friday we went home, walked and fed the dog, made and ate dinner and were watching a movie (american treasure: book of secrets; fluffy and fun) when i realized it wasn't quite 9 pm. drew had this realization at pretty much the same time i did and we couldn't believe we'd done all that stuff and it was still so early. if we were still in santa cruz we'd have been maybe finishing up, more likely eating, dinner. this 15 minute commute is rocking! i miss the beach, but not enough to do that commute anymore. and eventually we'll normalize and heading to santa cruz for the weekend won't seem so laborious. we're both so tired right now that even the though makes me exhausted. thank God the moving is almost done! :)