Hydra's Heights and Fresh Garbanzos. - Sunday 5/31/2009

So of course, the first time I decide not to accompany Hydra on his hike, he goes and scales his mountain! That's him waving his crutch above his head after calling me on the cell phone to alert me to his feat.

Boys cannot be trusted!



Tomato and artichoke progress, just so you know.


I just heard Evan Kleiman sing the praises of fresh garbanzo beans on Good Food recently, and what should I find at my local Vallarta market?

The very thing I was looking for!



There are 1-2 beans per pod. Usually one.

They aren't beige. They're green!


See them in there? They're yummy fresh or steamed and drizzled with some good olive oil. On the radio, they said that people roast them over grills.

The pods are fairly tender, but not tender enough to eat. Not bad shelling... I pressed on them till they popped open like little balloons and then took out the beans.

Beep! Beep! - Friday 5/29/2009

This roadrunner brought to you courtesy of my Nikon D80. This has been much-cropped.

Maybe because it happens so rarely, I always feel that it's great good fortune to see a roadrunner. It might even be a good omen.




Hydra on the trail again. Good man! See the road runner at about 5 o'clock?



Elusive... He's the V in the grass.



Baby toys where they shouldn't be. I have this thing about lost things.



This lost feather is not as out of place.

Hydra Hits the Trail! - Thursday 5/28/2009

Look at that intrepid explorer! Just 10 days after surgery to repair that meniscus tear (Ooh! Look, ma! No spellchecker!), he's on the trail again. They write songs about stuff like this!


Admittedly, the going was about half of our usual pace, but really really good for a guy who had a camera and a knife in his knee joint so recently! Beautiful day for it.


Around the far side of the neighborhood... Is that fire road looking a little long to anyone else?



As I was taking photos of these cactus flowers, bees kept diving into them and burying their faces in the middle. Can you see the one that took a header into this bloom?


Oleanders down by the mailboxes.


The neighbor's coreopsis. The neighborhood is lit up with flowers these days!


We arrived home to discover ground squirrels nibbling on the tender cucumber sprouts I planted. And this container has herbs in it that I started from seed. Herb soup. Sigh. Hopefully I saved some of them.



Found about six ounces of beef in the freezer and used up the carrots, celery and some of the red potatoes making this soup. Also called in the help of Better Than Boullion to flesh out the soup, so to speak. Used fresh thyme and mint for seasoning.

Hint: When using fresh herbs that have stems in soups and stews, don't bother nipping off all the leaves. Just put the whole sprig in the soup. The leaves will cook off and you can easily pull out the stems before serving.

Is Nothing Sacred!? - Monday 5/18/2009

Not when you live with a blogger, no.

Here's Hydra getting ready for knee surgery to repair a meniscus tear. With which apparently a lot of you may be familiar. When I mentioned it to friends, I found out a number of you have had it.

I wouldn't seriously have thought of taking a photograph at such a time, but I was impressed with the high tech hospital gown he's wearing. It's actually a warming system made by Bair Paws, hence the cute logo.

The basic concept is they blow hot air up your skirt-- er into an inflatable lining in the gown--to keep you warm during surgery.

We were feeling a little lucky since Hydra was stopped for driving 66 mph in a 55 mph zone, but the nice officer let us go maybe partly because of the impending surgery and partly because we pulled to a stop beneath the 14 to 5 connector bridge and he couldn't get radio reception there. Whew.



Ooh! It comes with cute socks!? With perks like this, I might just sign up for surgery!



What a good sport. I think I'll keep him.



One of two air ducts available for warm air introduction. Not exactly the Six Million Dollar Man, but close enough.

As the morning wore on from our arrival time at 8:30 past the 10:40 date with the operating table, things became a bit more grim.

Waiting. Why did it have to be waiting?

So we played a question game to pass the time.

Sundry: Would you rather have a lap full of snakes that can bite, but which aren't poisonous, or would you rather wait for an hour?

Hydra: Snakes.

Sundry: Would you rather let a spider crawl slowly up your arm, or would you rather wait for an hour?

Hydra : Wait.

Sundry: Would you rather swim through a lake full of boogers or wait for an hour.

Hydra: That sounds like something from your childhood.

Sundry: Yeah. Swim through a lake of boogers, eat a bowl of boogers, or kiss another girl? What is, How do you create a bunch of little homophobes, Alex?

It went well. Poor Hydra looked like someone had roughed him up a bit when I saw him in the recovery area, but he was too doped up to know.

Guitars. No Cadillacs - Friday 3/20/2009

Now really. Is there a better way to spend the day than in the company of musicians?

We went in to Fillmore in the early morning for our Starbucks fix and to sit and read the Ventura County Star. The Voice came in for his daily brew and we sat and talked for quite a while.

We met up again back at the campground. Click below for a sample of The Voice's voice. Wish I'd thought to hit the video sooner!

We are so lucky to have found Songmakers. It's an amazing group of people.

Christmas Eve - Wednesday 12/24/2008

Hydra sneaks past with some last minute gift wrapping.


I prep the rib roast for tomorrow's feast. It pleases me wildly that I can step out my kitchen door and snip fresh rosemary from my herb garden.

Hydra Dances While Rome Becomes Snowbound - Thu. 12/18/2008

The suspenseful buildup.


The promising first act.


The titillating second act, wherein the conflict deepens.


The triumphant finale!


The crowd goes wild!

The Story of Little Tree - Wednesday 12/17/2008

There's this little pine tree that sprouted up outside my studio window. It's the offspring of our fabulous big pine tree.

We had snow in Acton! So exciting. Dodger's watching it dust the little tree. Beautiful.



Dodger and I begin to fear for the little tree around 9 a.m.



Hydra takes pity and frees the little tree from the burden of snow when we venture out later in the day. I'm working from home, except that the power and Internet connections keep coming and going. He has a full on snow day.


Aw shucks. A couple of hours later, it's still snowing and blowing and the little tree is in a fix again!

We had some snow storm. It snowed for at least 12 hours and dropped 7-8 inches. There are so many pictures for me to choose from. I was in heaven!

I'll post more. It's bee so frustrating not to be able to get to my blog!

This is Dedicated to the One I Love - Sunday 8/24/2008 (Part 2)

Yeah, you can boast about your significant others all you want. Hydra gets the prize!

To make what could be a very long story short, we stopped in Tehachapi for lunch on the drive home. We were pretty much ignored by the servers, so we got up and left. Prices were not great, menu was not exciting. We moved on.

Stopped a couple more places but nothing looked interesting. Ended up at Cafe 58 in Mojave (formerly Jerry's, where we've stopped for years.)

Got all the way to Palmdale, and as we were walking into Trader Joe's I realized that I might have left my notebook and my Waterman pen in that first restaurant, about 50 miles back. I got out my (admittedly lame) cell phone and found that someone had left a message about ten minutes (and fewer miles) after we left.

I was willing to take Hydra the last 12 miles home and go back for it myself. But he knew I was tired and said it would be almost fun if we did it together, and so without being grumpy about it in the least, we turned around and went back!


By the time we got back to Kelcy's, the server who had called was gone for the day. I left a note and $20.

The notebook offers a reward for return. (I've lost one and had one stolen and they still feel like holes.)

I figure that if she'd been there she might have declined the reward. But I also figure that she would at least want to have it offer and be able to decline. It seemed like much better karma to leave a little money along with a note in which I thanked her and told her I hoped she'd accept my token of gratitude with the same open heart with which it was given. (Also don't want to insult a person by implicitly implying that they wouldn't have done it without the reward.)



Hydra, on top of being a really good sport who is always supportive of my writing and other life choices, is a good photo scout. He wanted to make sure we had a shot of this, too.


Classic California.

When we finally pulled off the freeway 100 miles (what is it with that distance?) and 2 hours later than expected, I dialed my iPod to Bridge Over Troubled Waters and improvised these lyrics:

Like a bridge over troubled waters
I will drive around
Like a bridge over troubled waters
Till all your stuff is found

Hey. It's love. It doesn't have to be eloquent.

On the Road - Thursday 8/7/2008

Hydra brought me roses in a vase that fit perfectly in the cup holder of the Tahoe. As soon as I got done working from home, we set off for camping with our music friends. It was an awful workday. I actually cried when I realized I'd missed sending out an entire report and had to... Oh, it doesn't matter.

The roses are in celebration of our 21st anniversary, which will be tomorrow. Perfect!



I just find this interesting. There are some kind of seedlings getting a moister start under these strips of plastic in the fields along the 126.

The Road Home - Friday 8/1/2008

Hydra's favorite road cut... on Escondido Canyon Road heading toward Acton from Agua Dulce. It's a nice reveal when you drive through here.

It's easier to drive 55 and get better fuel economy on these smaller roads than on the highly competitive 14.


Hydra on Sundry's Mountain. Can you see him? Hiker Man!

This is the Way We Bake a Pie - Tuesday 6/24/2008

Okay, so I still haven't perfected rolling out the dough and getting it onto the pie, but at least I figured out what I did wrong last time when the top crust didn't cook right. (Covered the whole thing with foil when I was only supposed to cover the rim.)

Remember I picked all the peaches last week? Well, by today they'd spent enough time ripening in a paper bag in the pantry and needed to be dealt with.

Tomorrow we're celebrating my birthday at work. It was in January but we were on strike, so it was postponed. Two others are celebrating their birthdays, too. We'll go out for lunch on the company and we'll each get a gift card that our coworkers all contribute to. It's a nice tradition.

I decided to make a fresh peach pie rather than us buying something. Hydra pitched right in and cut up peaches while I made the dough (from a boxed mix) and cut up a watermelon so we could fit it in the fridge.

He continued cutting up the extra 10 cups of peaches that we froze while I put about 4 1/2 cups into the pie. His pieces are so nice and uniform. Mine tend to be kind of wonky.

It overflowed a little while cooking, which set off the smoke alarm. Which set off the parrot.

He does love a loud noise.



Pie's in the oven. Kitchen's cleaned up. Dishwasher gurgles in the background. Smoke alarm has been subdued.

We're watching season 2 of Weeds on DVD and enjoying dessert: red raspberries in Sauvignon Blanc for me and watermelon for Hydra.

Summertime!!

Hydra Tempts Fate - Monday 6/23/2008

Dodger likes to stand on the tallest thing around. Sometimes it's the box on the end of the counter. Sometimes it's a watermelon.

Tonight it was a Trader Joe's bag I'd just emptied.

As you can imagine, the paper didn't hold his weight very long, and he tumbled down inside of it.
Was he freaked out? No!

He started digging his way out. And defending his right to do so. See the beak coming through the hole?





Corned beef, broccoli and potatoes. We bought an extra corned beef brisket around St. Patrick's Day and since I worked from home today I was able to cook it up. Didn't have any cabbage, though, so I added broccoli to my dish.

It's pretty, tasty and as it turns out, broccoli's in the cabbage family!

Early Solstice Celebration - Tuesday 6/19/2007

Hydra came home with this today. What's especially cool is that I'd spoken to someone else about my plans to do a small private ceremony on the solstice to recommit to writing and state my intentions for the coming solar quarter.

Here's the backstory:

The beautiful blue Waterman pen he gave me for Christmas 2005 has been missing for a little over two weeks. I've looked high and low, in and out...twice. Calmly. Figuring I would find it and why cause a fuss.
I have

• sorted through all the books and bookmarks underneath the head of the bed
• looked in the bill-paying drawer, the end table drawers, the bedside table drawers, even the silverware drawer
• looked in every bag I've carried in the last six months (at least twice), plus the suitcases I took to France, even though I'd used the pen since coming back
• cleaned the floor and trunk of my car because the last time I remember seeing it was in my camera bag, and it might have fallen out
• helped shampoo the carpet in the major rooms and master bedroom...not because of the search, but you see, a lot of stuff has been moved
• checked under all the cushions
• completely cleaned all surfaces of my desk at work and reorganized the drawers (partly because of imminent carpet replacement)
• checked around the outside bench where I sometimes write on the front porch
• attempted to use both of the gorgeous antique fountain pens Braveheart has given me (non-cartridge...I think they need a thorough cleaning and maybe some rehab)
• tried the Saint Anthony prayer, but he was apparently busy looking for something for OneL, who is always asking him for favors
  

So tonight Hydra took pity on me and brought me home a beautiful silver Waterman that says "France" right on it! It's so fine, so well balanced. It didn't require a second of scribbling, the ink was just there. Aaaah.

I am a fountain pen lover. Ever since middle school. Used to be cheap Schaeffers, then Parkers. Only graduated to the Waterman for Christmas 2005.

They flow better than any other kind of pen, and any fountain pen will counteract my bad habits of pressing too hard and holding on too tight. You have to relax when you use a fountain pen, and something about that frees up my brain, too.

What a sweetie my Hydra is. He is so supportive of my creative life.



Dodger thinks it's cool, too.


This is where it stops being cute and I start getting protective. Figuring out how pens and other small shiny objects come apart is practically an avocation for this particular parrot.

Magic Boots! - Tuesday 3/13/2007

Look how fast those hands are moving! Hydra's new custom made Harlick's skate boots arrived via UPS.



We're both excited that he's going to get back on the ice. He's going to have his old blades mounted on the new boots...after they get resized. They didn't fit just right.

Hydra was a pretty highly ranked competative skater. 2nd in Eastern Great Lakes Sub-Sectional Sr. Men's Championships (9 states), 3rd in Midwestern Sr. Men's Championships, 8th in Jr. Men's National in 1966.

At some point I will rent some skates and fall down a few times, in support. I did all my skating on lakes, and the only jumps I did were to avoid ice fishing holes.