it's a beautiful day in the neighborhood

We seriously live in the best neighborhood in the universe.

Just got back a little while ago from the neighborhood emergency planning meeting (also the monthly neighborhood potluck). Neighbors got together at the main gathering spot on our street* this evening for a presentation from a local emergency preparedness expert (also a neighbor). His presentation was all about why it's practical to be prepared, but he also gave us tremendous information about easy measures we can take and available resources we can use. (Tip: a lot of the materials we received tonight, which really are super informative, were apparently made available via Homeland Security funding. Which means it's likely that a lot of other communities have similiar departments and resources to offer.)

*[Two of our neighbors have built a wonderful community space on the lower part of their property. On the far end, there's a fire pit with earthen seats all the way around, and an astounding view of the bridge, river, and Forest Park. There's a covered stage for neighborhood concerts (we have lots of talented musicians) and lots of room either for seating or dancing or both. And there's an ingenious outdoor kitchen that makes hosting the neighborhood potlucks easy, but also makes it possible to have monthly "classes", where everyone learns the fine arts of food preparation and preservation. Pickling, fermenting, brewing, canning...Sal's even on deck to teach everyone how to make rustic breads.]

The idea isn't to be scared or paranoid, but to make smart, reasonable preparations for all kinds of emergencies. Not just the big stuff, like earthquakes, but also more frequent, less catastrophic things like extended power outages. Practical ideas, like stocking an emergency kit for home and car, learning how to turn off utilities to prevent gas leaks and fires, and alternative communications when cell phones and computers (or electricity, period) aren't working. (Tip: cell phones will almost always go down in an emergency to leave the lines open for emergency personnel communications, but texting will usually still be available. The City of Portland has a really cool site at www.publicalerts.org where you can put in your info and be notified via the method of your choice if there's an emergency in your area.)

Our neighborhood plans for this to be the first in a series. The first goal is for each of our households to do the things we need to prepare. Once we've started working on that, our next goal will be how our neighborhood can be a self-sufficient community in the event of emergency or disaster. Building an "asset map" (what skills and resources are available in our neighborhood, which is useful even when there's not an emergency); designating responsibilities (people to go around to each house to make sure gas valves are turned off, for example, in the event of an earthquake to prevent secondary fires, or people who will check on elderly or disabled neighbors); basic first-aid and triage education (so we can start caring for each other in the event emergency personnel are too overwhelmed or unable to reach us right away); central meeting places (to do head counts and situation reassessment, and for allocating resources).

After that, we'll be moving on to expanding the idea further into our community, so other neighborhoods in the area can do what we're doing and provide support to each other in times of need. Because (as I learned tonight) there are 300 police officers and 160 firefighters and 22 ambulance crews for the entire city of Portland, a population of 500,000 people. In the event of a city- or region-wide emergency, they'll be doing the heroic work, but the very best thing _we_ can do for ourselves and for them is to take care of each other. (The presentation materials we received tonight advised that we should plan to be on our own for the first 72 hours, so to have plans in place that could take care of everything through that time, if not longer.)

I just love our neighborhood so much! We are a community of progressives and activists and naturalists and urban farmers and dreamers and artists and craftspeople and teachers. We are rich in talents and skills and knowledge and education and passion. We all love our little corner of the world, and we are building a village together.

wicked fun

So at the last couple of neighborhood game nights, the game du jour has been a collaborative RPG called Arkham Horror. It is, in a word, awesome. There are eighty bajillion little cards and intricate character stories and monsters and big bads and weapons and MATH and COLOR CODING and ORGANIZATIONAL SKILLS and OMG HOW DID I NOT KNOW THIS GAME EXISTED BEFORE. Oh my little rational mastermind heart goes pitter pat just thinking about it.

Both the night following the first time we played, as well as last night, my dreams were occupied with Lovecraftian monsters and figuring out how many die I need to close a gate and strategizing what combination of Fight, Sneak, Lore, Will, Speed, and Luck I'm going to need for the next round. CLEARLY THIS IS A SIGN I NEED TO PLAY THIS GAME ALL THE TIME.

lunch, Paris slimline:

• smoked sausages
• boiled eggs
• green beans (more underneath the sausages and eggs)
• carrots and celery sticks
• dark chocolate with orange zest
• dried cherries

like a girl at the ball, and my dance card is full

The crazy train that has been our lives (and more specifically, my life) has slowed down from "death defying" to "breakneck", and our/my reward for surviving is a pile-up of several things we've been looking forward to for a long time. A trip to the coast, time off to write, Hall-Smiley family time, apple festivals, wedding cake judging competitions, and more.

And things kick off this week with an awesomeness double-header: neighborhood game night tomorrow and Thursday night season premieres (Community, Parks & Recreation, The Office, and 30 Rock) with ProcratiGirl. Look at me being all social butterfly up in here.

lunch, Ms. Bento:

• potato soup (srsly, I made a vat of it Sunday night)
• carrots & celery
• Honeycrisp! apple
• dried cherries and cashews

summer begins to have the look, peruser of enchanting book

Fall is definitely here. It's my favorite season, all bright, crisp days and cool, clear nights. Or gray and rainy like it was this weekend. I love everything about it, from the smell and feel of the air to the turning leaves to the heavy sweaters and abundance of produce and craving for hearty comfort foods. And, joy of joys, Honeycrisp apples!

We were fortunate to not have a whole lot on the docket at Hall House, which meant that I could spend most of the day curled up in the library with a new book, and fall asleep in my chair for an impromptu afternoon nap. It also meant time to get laundry done without it feeling like a chore (folding while watching movies), and to stay on top of the dishes (always a challenge without a dishwasher), and to write for a good long stretch of time while Sal helped a friend harvest their hops (and coming home with a nice bounty as a result). It was the best sort of weekend, a combination of productive and leisurely, cozy and restful and restorative.

With such weather that makes a person crave hearty comfort foods, it's little wonder that Sunday night dinner would be something thick and creamy and served with crusty artisan bread and likely to put a person to sleep after two overflowing bowls full. Which we totally didn't have. We also totally didn't follow that with a slice of opera cake and a dollop of malted chocolate ice cream. We're all about moderation here at Hall House.

breakfast, cute animals sidecar:

• oatmeal with raisins and maple syrup
• Honeycrisp apple slices

lunch, Ms. Bento:

• potato soup (potatoes, spaetzle, corn, celery, dill)
• peas and carrots
• Honeycrisp apple half
• opera cake

title taken from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickenson, "Part Five: The Single Hound, LXV"

and if i pretend her house is my house, well, that would be understandable

Forest Park, along the Leif Erikson TrailThe Book Fairy (who takes many forms, but in this case looks like Sal) heard my fervent prayers and delivered my most recent book wish: Wildwood.

I have been waiting for this book for, literally, months. It just came out a couple of weeks ago, but it's gotten a lot of pre-publication buzz (and has already been optioned by Laika). I, of course, first learned about it on the The Decemberists' mailing list.

It's written by, if you didn't know, Colin Meloy and his wife, Carson Ellis. (Yes, that Colin Meloy and that Carson Ellis.) About a wild forest and a little girl and magical adventures, starting right here in St. Johns and then across the river in Forest Park, written by the lead singer and songwriter of my favorite band ever ever ever, who is a former English major and who happens to live just across the river from me, and who has a deep seated love for fantastical tales with a healthy dose of darkness and girls who are the heroes of their own stories, and seriously, SRSLY! This book could not have been more written for me if it had a main character with my name who has a penchant for eating M&M's in multiples of five.

It's a gray and rainy day, with mist drifting low in the forest across the river that's the setting of this little tale, and Sal has returned from the German food cart with a generous slice of streudel. I think there's just enough milk in the fridge for a big mug of hot chocolate, and the kitties are particularly snuggly today.

So you'll have to excuse me today while I disappear to my cozy little library in the other room and lose myself in a book.

little pink houses for you and me

The Little Green House (Now Yellow) Across The Street, taken November 2003So the douchebag developer across the street has finally begun work. It's been nine years since we first started battling it out with him, and a year since the incident last year following testimony about the final plan that was approved. He's still going to build some craptastic development, but at least it'll be limited to three stories and eight units of craptasticness instead of his original plan of six and sixty-seven, respectively. Small miracles and alla that.

Yesterday's work appeared to be some sort of underground pipe installation. There'll be equipment out all the the time soon, ripping out plants and tearing up ancient concrete sidewalks and generally making life noisy and inconvenient for awhile. The day when they tear down the little old house is nearing quickly, I suppose. I hope I'm not here when they do it.

lunch, deli club:

• molded eggs
• corn and peas
• red grapes
• cashews, dried cherries, with dried mango as baran

it's just a flesh wound

I took Friday off and headed to the coast to get away from the mid-90s that've plagued us for the last several days. (Seriously, we have had some cracked out weather this year.  Highest temps of the year in September? And we still never hit triple digits, which we usually do at least once or twice. I should be thankful that at least it didn't approach 100....) Just me, some good music, a few snacks, a book, and the open road.

Heading west was the right idea. It was 25 to 30 degrees cooler in Astoria, with a heavy fog bank sitting just a few miles offshore all day and all of Cape Disappointment enveloped in mist. I opted to head to the other side of mouth of the Columbia at Fort Stevens, all around the Jetty Lagoon and up to the observation tower at the South Jetty. (Where I could see across to the river and the North Head lighthouse where we were just a couple of weeks ago.)

see more pics here

While I was on my little Kerouac-esque sojourn, I made the mistake of checking G+ and saw that Sal had posted a pic of an injury sustained while he was test riding a new bike. Beneath the pic of his hand, all scraped and bloodied, he added the note, "Honey, I'm okay :-)". Which are usually the words that precede "I'm at the emergency room". He wasn't, thankfully, but I still worried about him all the way home.

My suspicion that he was hurt worse than the pic showed was confirmed later that night, when he arrived home from work limping. The hand was the least of his injuries -- he'd landed on his knee, which was now swollen and bruised, and sprained his ankle. And then spent the night on his feet on a concrete floor, with neither injuries bandaged.

So we've spent the weekend keeping everything iced, compressed, and elevated as much as possible. Of course, he's an irascible patient, stubbornly insisting on getting up to do things instead of letting me do them for him, and arguing every time I tell him to sit still. Guy, Sister, and the Fabulous Miss M were here to visit for the weekend, and nothing was going to stop him from playing at the park with Miss M, not even a moderate injury. He seems genuinely surprised to find out he's both mortal and destructible, and it's seriously the Knights of Ni all up in here.

lunch, Laptop Lunch:

• enchiladas
• salad (romaine, tomatoes, carrots, celery) with dressing in the condiment cup
• red grapes
• berry swirl cheesecake that Sal made and that I am officially in love with

the root of the wind is water

reblogged on tumblr, taken from this comic on funnyjunk.com -- life at Hall House in a simple two-panel comic

The only good thing about coming back to work after a three day weekend is that it makes a four day work week.

Ahem. I may be having trouble shifting gears from "leisure" mode to "work" mode.

We spent part of yesterday at Kelley Point Park, then took a late afternoon drive so I could show Sal my secret getaway. (Some Friday afternoons if the weather's nice, I grab a book, maybe toss a few things in a bento box, and hop in the car for a bit of a drive to my secret getaway, where I can watch boats pass by and read my book and officially start the weekend.)

We sat for a bit in silence, watching the boats and taking in the view, and I closed my eyes to breathe in that scent of the water on the wind. I said, almost to myself, "I've come to realize how much I need to be near water."

He laughed and shook his head. "Duh. Took you long enough. Aquarius."

"Shut up, you don't know me." I laughed and bumped him with my shoulder. "How long have you known?"

"Pretty much since we first started dating. And then when we moved here, and the ocean...you know how you are."

I smiled and nodded. Yes, I know how I am. I appreciate that he knows, too. To him, I said, "Is there anything you need to be near?"

"You," he said without skipping a beat, and I fell in love with him all over again.

lunch, bento colors purple

• Thai peanut chicken skewers
• jasmine rice
• caprese salad
• carrots
• wax beans
• grapes and just bit of lemon cheesecake

Today's lunch courtesy of the veritable cornucopia on our table for dinner last night, thanks to the delivery of our produce bin and lots of yummy odds and ends in the fridge that added up to a bit of a feast. We grilled some skewers and corn in husks, I put together a green salad, cooked up some rice, and, along with the caprese salad leftover from Saturday and the lemon cheesecake Sal brought home from work Friday night, we ate like kings. Damn hell ass kings.

title taken from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, "Part V: The Single Hound, #51"

the hallway comes to droid

Fabulous! The website software platform we use for the site just released (FINALLY!) their droid app. Which means we can finally post on the go!

post-it perfectionist

North Head Lighthouse @ Cape DisappointmentOn the advice of a friend, I assigned myself the task last week of letting myself make mistakes.

I mean, obviously I make mistakes all the time, because I'm A) human, and B) not perfect. Duh. I am biologically wired, however, to try to be perfect at everything, and only years and years of tamping down that dictatorial little personality streak like a 1980s South American despot has made it possible for me to be okay with just being okay. Hooray for maturity!

However. When I am under a lot of pressure and facing mounting tasks with unforgiving deadlines and high expectations, my inner dictator seizes the opportunity for a military coup of the State of Brittney. I'm in the midst of just that sort of period at the moment, in which work and website business pressures are combining to make me twitch a bit with the effort not to Be The Best At Everything by trying to accomplish all my responsibilities at once. Hence the advice of a friend for a little radical reverse psychology, to not just not be perfect, but to actually let the mistakes happen.

She may secretly be trying to kill me.

Last week, I was at the office late, trying to get out the door but with three separate piles that each needed to go to three separate people, and three separate post-its to be written. It's a good thing I was in the office alone, because as I was rewriting each of those notes, I had to bust out laughing at myself. Yes, you read that right:  I was rewriting post-its. As in, I had done a first draft, edited for mistakes and clarity, then rewritten them so that they would read well and fit nicely on the selected post-it size.

I, um, may have some work to do on this not-being-a-perfectionist thing.

(Yeah, the picture above has nothing to do with anything, I just love it. The pics from our daytrip to Cape Disappointment are posted, by the way, as promised.)

breakfast, Lunchbot Pico:

• oatmeal (with butter & maple syrup in the condiment containers), not yet cooked
• raisins, to mix in the oatmeal
• peach slices

lunch, Lunchbot Duo:

• Sal's Amazingly Wondrous Wings (the very last of the batch made on Saturday)
• wee potatoes
• celery sticks
• carrot sticks
• tomato
• dark chocolate and dried cherries

daytrippin' at cape disappointment

overlook @ Beard's HollowAnother weekend and we decided it was time for another daytrip. So Sunday, we got up earlier than usual and headed west to Cape Disappointment.

Such a misleading name! It's a gorgeous state park, covering a fairly sizeable area of the southwestern tip of Washington, which makes it a great place to spend a whole day. There are two lighthouses -- each accessible only by a half mile hike -- and trails and beach fronts and overlooks and even a Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center. Even if you didn't set foot out of your vehicle (which would be a shame), the drive alone is beautiful.

I packed us each a bento, which we got to enjoy high atop a cliff overlooking the Pacific. That is something I will never tire of, being able to eat my lunch right there, watching the ocean. The ocean, you guys! That will never stop being amazing to me.

We had to leave earlier than we would've liked to get back in time for our neighborhood potluck (so fun!), but I there might have to be a weekend in Astoria in our near future so we can spend more of the day there.

(more pictures of our trip to come when I get a chance to upload them)

Sunday's picnic, Sal -- blue bunny & moons:

• Mediterranean grilled chicken
• orzo salad (orzo, tomatoes, kalamata olives, feta, mint)
• celery and carrot sticks
• apple slices and honey peanut butter for dipping

Sunday's picnic, Brittney -- black strawberry:

• Mediterranean grilled chicken
• tabbouleh
• celery and carrot ticks
• apple slices and honey peanut butter for dipping

today's breakfast, matryoshka:

• mini blueberry pancakes
• peach slices

today's lunch, French bistro:

• Mediterranean grilled chicken
• tabbouleh
• celery and carrot sticks
• peach and apricots slices

sure of you

I have a lifelong friend. Literally, lifelong. As in, the only people who have known me longer are my family.

I first met her in kindergarten. She has only a vague recollection of knowing each other then, but I remember our first meeting very clearly, in the basement playground (where we were sent for recess when the weather was too bad to be let outside). We became the sort of best friends that can only happen in kindergarten, which is to say playing together at recess, except when we didn't.

I moved to a different school at the end of that year, the first of what would be several moves to several different schools. She moved, too, so that we were ships in the night until we finally crossed paths again in fifth grade when we both landed at the same school for the first semester. Then it was another move for me, and another move back, ensuring that in the seven years of elementary school, we never had a complete school year together.

The summer before our freshman year, the year when it really, really helps to have a familiar face amongst the scary crowds of upperclassman, she moved far, far away, all the way to the other side of the state. Somehow, we managed to maintain our friendship with only letters and the occasional visit when she was in town. Other friendships fell away and new ones started up, and we weren't always so consistent in our correspondence, but by some divine blessing, we stayed in touch.

The same summer I happened to be working as a nanny, she moved to the same town where I was working. We were the only people our age we knew there, and by then we had the benefits of drivers' licenses and actual things to do, which meant a summer of adventures and hilarity, the kind of inside jokes that become a secret language. But the summer ended, and I had to leave her behind to a new school for her senior year, and I have rarely felt so badly for leaving someone behind as I did then.

In the years that followed, we had years together and years apart. We went to the same college and she helped me get a job where she worked. I later had a chance to return the favor. We commiserated over classes and relationships and job woes and all the other travails of being in those difficult stages of adulthood when you still feel like life is just going to pass you by.

But life most definitely did not pass us by.  Marriages, houses, careers, families.... And always, the constant move, from this apartment to that one, this college town to that one, this state to that one. Moving has been a constant for us both, but throughout it all, this friendship has been the constant, the important thing that remained no matter where we were in relation to each other or anything else.

Earlier this week, her daughter started kindergarten. A difficult time for any parent, yet my friend has steered through this transition with the wise and gentle grace that makes her such an inspiration. As we talked about it recently, we both laughed and marveled at how long our friendship has lasted, despite everything. She said that despite all the bittersweetness of sending her beloved daughter off for the first day of school, one of the thoughts that consoled her was that perhaps her own daughter would be meeting her lifelong friend. She could not, she said, hope for anything more blessed than that.

A few days ago, a care package arrived on my doorstep. Inside, there were all the necessary tools of the first day of kindergarten: markers and crayons, colored pencils and watercolors, glue in my favorite color and a pretty notebook with page after page of tantalizing lined paper just begging for my most innermost thoughts to fill them up.

"Happy Friend-iversary!" the card said. Signed, my lifelong friend.

Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind.
"Pooh!" he whispered.
"Yes Piglet?"
"Nothing" said Piglet, taking Pooh's paw. I just wanted to be sure of you."
                    -- A. A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner

___________________________________________________________

lunch, Lunchbot Duo:

• sausages
• cucumbers
• green beans
• tomato
• apricot
• pluot slices
• Babybel cheese
• cashews and dried cherries

whose slender roots entwine altars that piety neglects

Oh the adventures we have had! So many to tell you!

Like Wednesday night's neighborhood game night, hosted at our house. Or Friday night catching up and watching stuff with ProcrastiGirl. And yesterday, Sal rode in the Bridge Pedal, which is a bike ride that covers 35 miles and ten of the city bridges (including the St. Johns Bridge). (Which means Sal logged almost 55 miles, since it was 9+ miles to the starting point and then the same distance home.) And afterward, we did up a big ol' batch of stir fry on the patio, because life is ridiculously good.

Saturday, while we took our time over the brunch Sal made, talking about what to do with the day, we decided we were long overdue for a driveabout. We were getting a late start, so we needed a closer destination than, say, the coast. We decided on Vernonia, since we haven't explored much of the Coast Range that lies between Hwy 26 and Hwy 30.

We often pack a picnic for a driveabout, but didn't have much in the fridge that wouldn't take some prep time, so we decided instead just to grab a few snacks and our water bottles and go. Daylight was burning, after all. (You'll note I didn't say "sunlight", as it was overcast almost all day. But still temperate and nice, so no complaints here.)

Vernonia is situated in a little valley in the forested hills of the Coast Range. (Which sort of makes it a mountain town if you consider the Coast Range mountains. We don't, but the rest of Oregon does, so.) We took the Scappoose-Vernonia Highway from Hwy 30, a two-lane highway winding through deep, dark (I mean dark) forest and up and over the hills/mountains.

the Nehalem River at Hawkins ParkIt's a nice little town, a bit bigger than I imagined, with a slightly-larger-than-a-pond lake at one end and the perennially-flooding Nehalem River running through the middle. We stopped at Hawkins Park, which sits right alongside the river. They've built an ingenious little dam there to create a nice swimming hole (in lieu of a city pool, presumably), complete with a concrete embankment so you don't have to walk in dirt to get to the water, a ladder over the side down into the deep end, a wooden lifeguard stand, and a charming bank of lockers. They even used a water diversion to one side to create a wading pool for little ones. It wasn't warm enough to draw swimmers while we there, not even brave ones, but it wasn't hard to imagine what it must be like on hot summer days.

Setting for a creepy horror flick? Do we commit the mortal sin of slasher films and go investigate the creepy abandoned building? Yes, yes we do.We headed to the lake next, where there's a nice paved walking path that skirts the perimeter. About a quarter of the way around, there's an abandoned building off the path about a hundred feet. According to the placard on the walking path, it's an old fuel house for a now vanished cedar mill. (The "lake", as it turns out, is the old mill pond.)  It stored cedar chips to stoke the mill furnaces. It now has trees growing inside it. I love the poetry of that. Of course we had to look inside. And if I had woken up that morning with the intent to have an adventure, I couldn't have planned a more perfect discovery of treasure.

inside, a marvelous surpriseThe interior was like something out of a story. All four concrete walls completely intact, seven trees growing around the interior's perimeter, with sword ferns and bracken ferns and vine maples spreading out in the corners. The walls are decorated with colorful graffiti in more imaginative style than mere tagging, collectively creating the effect of a mural. And every sound echoes so that you speak softly and sparingly. A row of concrete platforms running down the center look like old stone seats from some ancient pagan ritual site, one that's so old that no one knows for certain just who built it or what they built it for, and combined with the simple peaked roof gables and the light slanting in through the trees, it has the look of a cathedral.

We still had some time before we needed to head home, so instead of our snacks, I suggested the restaurant that had caught my eye as we drove through town. It was really the word "brewery" that caught my eye, because Sal loves few things more than trying a new beer in a new town wherever we go, and I have had long experience looking for the signs of such things.

The Blue House Cafe, Espresso Bar, & Brewery, as it turns out, was just as much of a treasure as the mill ruin had been.The interior is charmingly decorated, all yellow and cobalt blue, with delightful touches here and there (like the beaded curtain made of wine corks and the blue painted nail heads throughout) and an ingenious outdoor seating area. It's a quaint restaurant serving time-tested family recipies and run by people who obviously care very much about what they do.

Their menu is largely Mediterranean and everything sounded wonderful, although that's one of the toughest cuisines for me personally since there are usually several key ingredients I just can eat. (Feta, kalamata olives, lamb, gorgonzola, pepperoncinis...I could go on, but it's just depressing.) Which means scanning for something innocuous or that doesn't have too many ingredients to ask them to hold, all the while wishing I could eat more than my frustrating palate allows.

We settled on the zataar flatbread, one with feta (for him), one without (for me). No idea what zataar was, but it was an adventure and that means you have to try things without knowing everything that's in them. He ordered their porter, I ordered a lemonade. Sal said the beer was decent, though nothing to write home about. The lemonade looked more like iced tea when it came, but I wasn't feeling particularly picky so I took a sip anyway. It was indeed iced tea, but so good I was glad for the accidental mix-up. It was infused with fresh mint and sweetened with brown sugar, so it had a delicious, crisp summery flavor that was most refreshing.

PLEASE SAL FIGURE OUT HOW TO MAKE THIS FOR ME I WILL LOVE YOU FOREVER AND EVER AMENOur order arrived and with the first bite, I was in love. The flatbread was handmade and still warm, the zataar (a blend made of thyme, sumac, sea salt, and sesame seeds all ground together very finely) was mixed with olive oil and spread on the toasted flatbread, then topped with fresh tomato, cucumber, and onion. It was, in a word, heavenly. It may possibly have supplanted bruschetta as my favorite summertime treat. I'm still thinking about that meal two days later, and thinking a day trip to Vernonia may just have to be on our regular excursion list from now on.

You always take a chance on a driveabout that your search for adventure will end up being an uneventful day's drive in the car to nowhere in particular. You'll take your chances with the doubtful looking roadside cafe and it'll turn into a bust as often as naught. You'll point to a place on the map and arrive to find nothing much of interest. You'll have car trouble that is funny in retrospect, but anything but enjoyable at the time.

Still, even the least eventful driveabouts have their special moments: the hilarity that becomes a future in-joke, the music that imprints the moment just so, the odd sign or bizarre sight that makes you both go, "Did you just see...?" If they didn't, we wouldn't keep taking them. But every once in awhile, the search for a bit of adventure will turn up a little bit of mystery and a little bit of magic alongside those memories, and then you're hooked for life.

see the full set of pictures here

lunch, Paris slimline:

• stir fry (chicken, collard greens, baby bok choi, green beans, onion, garlic, broccoli, and a special sauce blend) with jasmine rice and crushed cashews for garnish
• cucumbers and carrots in rice wine vinegar
• a few bites of zucchini-sweet potato bread, courtesy of the neighbor who brought it for game night lst week
• blueberries (from our bushes!) and cherries

title taken from "Among the Ruins of a Convent in the Apennines" by William Wordsworth

celebration and mourning

Mother Nature seems to be making up for the lack of spring and summer by making every day of August so heartachingly beautiful that you feel like your heart might burst from its perfection. Every day for the last two weeks has been comfortably warm but not hot, still and fragrant and clear blue sky, and if the extended forecasts are to be believed, we're set to continue like this for the next two weeks or more.

August is also the time for two important birthdays: Sister's and the Fabulous Miss M's. They're not actually until tomorrow and Wednesday, respectively, but Saturday was the celebration for Miss M's, so that was the centerpiece of our weekend.

One of the perks of having a chef for a godfather is that you get beautiful and delicious cakes for your birthday. One of the (many, many) perks of having Sal for a godfather is that he will make your beautiful and delicious cake extra beautiful and extra delicious, even when you are turning four years old and your only requirements are that it be pink and girly.

His original plan involved fairies and flowers and lots of pink and purple, since those are Miss M's current favorite things. But reality collided with good intentions, and a fourteen hour day necessitated a quick reworking of those plans. He arrived home from work Friday night with enough layers for two round cakes (vanilla flavored "with a kiss of cocoa), a ginormous bowl of chocolate Italian buttercream, a smaller container of plain Italian butter cream, and a blob of handmade molding chocolate. The chocolate was for the roses and leaves he was determined to sculpt, but he wasn't sure what to do for the rest. I suggested tinting the plain icing pink, and doing it up in pink and chocolate brown for a more sophisticated take on girly.

It takes a surprising amount of skill to make a cake look clean and deceptively simple. It takes a significant amount of skill to do so without disguising your mistakes with a heavy slathering of icing to even things out.  I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader as to the level of Sal's skill. Except to also point out that the chocolate roses and leaves were sculpted by hand, and the wording was done with straight tempered* chocolate. Oh, and to note, yet again, that Sal normally has the handwriting of a serial killer, but put a pastry bag in his hand and suddenly he's got the penmanship of an 19th century Victorian aristocrat.

The cake was well received by the birthday girl, who asked to view the cake repeatedly while it was still in the box, well before it was actually brought out and served. The pink feather boa from Aunt Bitty was also a big hit, particularly since Miss M and her young guests spent the better part of the party playing dress up in their finest princess couture. (The biggest fashion hit of the day, however, belonged to one her friends, who put together a pink dress with a set of swim goggles, a dozen bracelets, orange flip flops, and a beaded Mardi Gras necklace that featured miniature plastic beer mugs. Wish I'd gotten a picture of that one.)

Since we'd spent our Saturday partying, it was time to be grownups yesterday and do some straightening and other such chores around the house. Sal tackled the apple tree in the backyard, which we finally conceded this spring would have to come down. We've known for a few years that it was inevitable, but this year, when the roots on the upper slope had actually come loose from the soil, we knew it was time.

Still, we hate that it has to go. It provides such a lovely green canopy over our patio, and is perfect for stringing lights through for our famous backyard parties. Not to mention the thick privacy screen from the attic window, so that when you're up there in the summer and you look out the window to see nothing but heavy green foliage and bright green apples, it feels like you're up in a tree house.

It's the also the last of the apple trees that were originally planted on our lot and the one next to it. The people who built our house, you see, had an apple orchard. Yes, that story from the Cathedral Park Chronicles is based on real history. When we moved into the house, the orchard next door was long since gone, replaced by the apartment building that's there now, but there were five apple trees in the back yard that remained from that orchard. We had to cut down four of them because they were diseased and in danger of falling on the house or the neighbor's. It killed us to do it, but we saved the healthiest one, and hoped we'd have it for years to come, even if it was too late to give it the care it needed to make the apples edible.

Unfortunately, it wasn't enough. And although we were fortunate enough to enjoy it for nine years, and we'll keep parts of the trunk to use in the yard the same way we did with the cherry tree that had to come down, it was hard to watch it come down bit by bit yesterday. We'll have to have an arborist to come in to finish the work, but I'll schedule it for a day when I'm not at home, so I don't have to watch.

Instead, I'll be at the nursery, looking for a new tree to plant. Not to take its place, but to honor its memory.

lunch, pink Natural Lunch:

• Parmesan breaded chicken
• rosemary roasted potatoes
• carrots
• peas
• cherries

meh and bleh with a side of feh

So I guess the economy isn't going to blow up or whatever, we'll just all live like serfs for the indefinite future, so that's a relief. Wouldn't want our royal masters to forego their gold-plated spitoons and other such necessities of life. I think Jon Stewart put it best when he said of the Republicans' threats to Democrats: "You buy the keg, and we won't burn your house down." Yay, democracy.

Craptacular political news aside, I'm in a foul mood all on my own. Sal's been suffering from some kind of throat/head cold thing for several days, and I think I've managed to contract it finally. Go me. Few things suck more than being sick during the summer, except perhaps being sick when you simply have too many things to get done that you can't take time off to rest and recuperate. Feh, I say.

It's probably no surprise that my lunch looks so bleh today. It's actually very yummy, and reasonably healthy, but I totally failed on the aesthetics. Although maybe I get points for the color coordination.

lunch, bento colors purple:

• egg scramble with caramelized onions and green peppers in a sundried tomato wrap
• dill and onion roasted potatoes
• carrot sticks
• cherries and nectarine halves

party all the time, party all the time, party all the ti-ime

And now you'll have that song in your head all day. You're welcome.

We had an inadvertent weekend of parties, hootenannies, and shindigs. As in, we didn't really plan it that way, it just sort of happened.

Witness: Friday was my company picnic and yesterday was a house warming* followed by the monthly neighborhood Happy Hour potluck. As if we're all trying to cram a full summer into the considerably shortened season we've been stuck with this year.  It's surprisingly exhausting kicking back and having fun, but doubly so when you're making up for lost time by tripling up on the festivities.

I know, right? These are just tough problems to have....

*One of Sal's coworkers was celebrating being back in their newly-renovated home. They had had a fire in their basement that caused extensive smoke damage to the rest of the house and necessitated basically gutting it and rebuilding the inside, as well as having everything that could be salvaged cleaned and restored. It took 14(!) months, but their house looks terrific and you would never know that it had been the site of such a terrible event. Since their house had already been warmed quite enough by the fire, thankyouverymuch, the party was actually a "house chilling".

lunch, blue bunny & moons:

• Tuscan roasted turkey breast, with a bit of romaine lettuce to eat it with
• carrots and cucumbers
• rosemary roasted potatoes
• cantaloupe and cherries
• garlic dill cheese curds
• cashews and dark chocolate-covered raisins

the meaning of community

I joined some neighbors last night for the bi-weekly neighborhood Game Night that started up recently. It was a great way to get to know everyone better and try out some new games.

We played Settlers of Catan, which was way, way fun. It seemed a little daunting at first, but was easy enough to pick up.  But still challenging (in a good way) to master, requiring strategy and adaptation. The best kind of game, really, because it keeps you coming back for more.

These are the kinds of things that make our neighborhood so amazing and special, and we feel tremendously fortunate that we landed where we did. I had such a great time and I'm looking forward to the next one. So much, in fact, that I volunteered to host the next one....

lunch, origami squares:

• salmon cake
• wee baked potato
• carrot sticks (more under the salmon and potato)
• cucumber slices (more under the fruit and raisins)
• cherries and blueberries
• dark chocolate covered raisins

pulling a cat's teeth is like poking a bear with a stick

Hobbes goes in for dental work first thing tomorrow morning, which has the dual benefits of being super expensive and really pissing him off. He'll feel pretty blech when he first gets home, but we fully expect retaliation once he feels well enough to start destroying something.

Poor guy has to have at least one tooth pulled and some treatment for his gums (he has early signs of peridontal disease), so he'll get lots of comforting and coddling. Both from us, and from Smaug, who ensures that he has the cleanest ears the vet has ever seen. Then he should be back to his ornery self within a few days.

In the office today to do a presentation this morning, so had to throw something together last night. We're set for produce, but as you can see, my protein and grain options are, ahem, lacking. I really need to put on my big kid pants and just get some shopping done instead of bemoaning the end of New Seasons' delivery.  Although I hear rumors they may put in a store here in St. Johns, so keep your fingers crossed for me....

lunch, Lunchbots Duo:

• hard boiled egg (notably, unmolded)
• carrots
• peas
• cucumber
• cherries
• blueberries
• dark chocolate covered raisins

zeus uses the neighborhood for target practice

Well the early morning pyrotechnics yesterday were the talk of the neighborhood. Seems we weren't the only ones who thought something had crash landed in the vicinity. Some people thought it was a plane crashing, others that the bridge had been hit with explosives. Nothing like the thought of horrible disaster in the pre-dawn quiet to get the blood flowing, eh?

And apparently, the flash bulb effect of the lightning that lit every house like a blue sun was due to a direct strike nearby. It hit an old Sequoia and sent pieces flying two blocks away. Very sad about such an old tree. Although I guess it's a good thing no one was hurt and it didn't start a fire.

lunch, pink Natural Lunch:

• pad Thai with chicken, and green onions for garnish
• cucumber and carrot slices
• cherries
• blueberries

a tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning

At about a quarter to five this morning, Sal and I were woken from a dead sleep by the sound of something crashing on top of the house. Nothing actually did crash on top of the house, but instead an extremely close and especially loud thunderclap, but it certainly sounded like it. In fact, it set off all the car alarms on the street.

Admittedly, thunder and lightning are a rare occurrence here. Once a summer, maybe. But it's not as if I've been away from Wyoming so long that I've forgotten how loud thunder is. This was one of those rare types of thunder that just kind of sneaks up on you, the meteorological equivalent of someone jumping out at you from a doorway and shouting "Boo!"

After we recovered from the heart attack, I finally laid down again and closed my eyes. A minute or so later, a brilliant flash of white blue behind my eyelids and then another booming crash immediately following. Let me repeat that: I saw the lightning flash with my eyes closed, in a room where there's no direct line of sight to a window. That is some primeval shit right there.

lunch, black strawberry:

• pad Thai with chicken
• peas
• carrot sticks
• fresh raspberries from our garden

title taken from The Tempest, obviously