We had reservations to camp at Carpinteria Beach State Park this week, but it was rainy and windy today. I think both of us were kind of holding back on saying that we didn’t really want to go, but once we talked about it, I felt truly excited about staying home.
It was a beautiful day off and on, with the clouds playing around the mountain tops across the valley.
What a sweetheart. I love my birds. But I miss dogs. This is D’s cousin’s dog, Lucas. He watched us forlornly from outside the sliding glass doors while we feasted on Cornish game hens with papaya salsa.
He deserved a good long scratch, and I gave it to him.
Starts at home with a cup of tea.
I broke the lovely bone china poinsettia tea cup that I recieved from a White Elephant style gift exchange with the women of the acoustic music club last year. It was so thin you could see light through it. Of course it couldn’t survive my clumsy one-handed attempt to put the cap on the spray olive oil can. Sigh.So this is my nice fall-back tea cup, with the sweet porcelain spoon my mother sent me for Christmas. These were meant for each other, no?
We open gifts from others before we drive down to spend the day with D’s family. Then open gifts from each other when we get home. A whole day of giftage.D gave me a Waterman pen, with notes about it being a magic pen that will help me get the words out of my heart and onto the paper. This gesture of support and faith is particularly potent after this year’s struggles and self-doubt. I cried a little. The good tears. I’m a very lucky person.
I love having a tree in the house. We were very lucky with this one. We’ve had it since the week after Thanksgiving, and it’s still drinking water and not all dried out.
My family heritage includes Irish, English, and a tiny bit of Native American, but my maiden name was German and there is German ancestry on both sides of my family tree. My great-grandfather came here at the end of the 19th century.I have a pickle ornament on my tannenbaum. As I understand it, it harkens back to pre-Christian days when pre-Germans worshiped nature and gave thanks by carrying food and candles to evergreens growing in the forests. (It’s widely credited to Martin Luther, but it’s true that Christianity has always been good at incorporating the symbols of the religions it replaces.)
Anyway, I perhaps romantically like to believe that my deep reverence for the natural world and appreciation of its beauty are rooted in my background. In Germany there are paths through fields and woods where visitors are welcome to partcipate in volksmarches (hikes).We’ll contribute the trunk to a campfire this spring when we go camping with our friends.
We spent a couple of hours at Barnes and Noble. Most people were shopping a bit frantically, so there were plenty of chairs to be had.
I’ve been reading Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment kitchen, which my friend G sent me…because of this blog. Pretty good return on my investment of time here, I’d say. It’s about a woman named Julie who set out to cook all the recipes in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year. I enjoy cooking when I have a little time, and this piqued my interest in trying some new dishes. Luckily, I came to my senses and didn’t get a Julia Child book. Just too difficult.But I did have a lovely afternoon of sipping a pumpkin spice latte and looking through books. I took the foreground home, found another book to give as a gift, and D found one on various guitar styles that he brought home. We decided these were gifts for each other.
I highly recommend this sort of gift giving. Spending time hanging out and shopping together and stumbling onto something special you didn’t know about is fun, and we also have the gift of the memory of the day spent together. It might be a nice thing to give a friend or relative you don’t spend enough time with. A gift card and a shopping date.
There was a lot of bright light coming through the windows on the plane from Indy to Las Vegas.
The little boy in the seat in front of mine pushed the shade up a little and was studying the way his hand glowed red as the light passed through it.He was a good little boy, maybe four years old. I’d watched his older brother cry and cry at the airport while we waited for our flight. His brother was about six or seven. He seemed to be deeply sad and frightened. He cried quietly.
“What if we don’t get a seat?” he asked.His mother told him that they would be sure to get seats. They’d be allowed to pre-board because the little brother was so little. The older one seemed to be afraid that he wasn’t going to get on with them, that the little brother and mother would go on without him. Even though she’d just said they’d all board together, she saw this too, and reassured him that he’d get to go on at the same time. She was really good with him, but also betrayed a moment of looking near to tears as he tucked his head under her chin and cried silently.
How sad for him. How puzzling for his little brother who, afer all, probably won’t find it puzzling at all. It will just be the only way he’s ever known his brother to be.
Mom went to Tractor Supply for something and was thrilled with the toy display there. We stopped by on our way to the airport. They had all kinds of John Deere stuff, from toddler-mobiles to farmer hats. Wonderful stuffed animals, and little plastic farm animals, a great toy wooden barn and a plastic Pony Wash, complete with ponies.
It reminded me of reading a children’s picture book written by a friend from a writing retreat. I exclaimed that it was great to see a book about urban kids, because I didn’t remember seeing those as a kid. She looked at me kind of funny, and gently commented that there have always been urban children’s books, it’s just that my school would have ordered the rural ones because we’d relate to them.Oh yeah. Duh. Get a little perspective, will you?
Beautiful. Up until a couple of days before this, though, B and her husband, J, were parking their cars at the bottom of the lane and walking up. Too much snow. A neighbor came over with his CAT and plowed it out for them in anticipation of their boys coming home from college for the holidays.
It was hard choosing a photo to post. Took several nice shots around their 3 acres. They have an 80-foot barn, a couple of sheds, a pond.B&J stood up with us at our wedding. Although we live a couple of thousand miles apart, they are still part of the family we chose.
I love visiting home, but I could do without the revival of my recurring homesickness.
Mom and I walked around downtown CC before meeting up with my sister for dinner. We found 3 or 4 little shops open and poked around in them.
Each of Indiana’s county seats has a wonderful courthouse. This one really anchors the town of about 8,000 people. My sister’s house is just a few blocks away.The building on the right used to house Flox’s Department Store. I remember going in there to shop for school clothes and shoes. You walked down a sloped hallway to get to the area where the shoes were sold. Now it’s an office building.I can’t help but find it sad that most real commerce has moved to the outskirts of town. I used to come here with Mom on Saturdays when I was a kid and we’d split up for an hour or two before meeting at the ice cream fountain at the back of the hardware store, or for Coney dogs at The Nook. The Nook and Murphey’s jewelry store are the only two businesses that are still there from when I was little, I think. I liked to hang out at Garden Gifts and pick out a magazine to buy.
I know things are meant to change. This little downtown has actually survived the arrival of Walmart as well as can be expected. I wish the downtown well. I hope that the influx of people ends up meaning that they will one day want to walk the courthouse and have a couple more restaurant choices, and it will revive a bit as a gathering place.
Mom and I walked down to the creek and back today. Stopped to take photos of the barn and fields until our fingers were painfully cold.
Love the color of these cornstalks in the snow.
It was 6 degrees when we got up this morning, 19 when we came back into the house after the walk, but Mom pointed out that the thermostat is in the sun. The wind was not strong, but added to the chilling effect.
My cheeks! Now I know what Jefferson feels like at Mount Rushmore.
This barn. I remember being in here as a kid. The neighbor girl’s dad nailed the tails of squirrels he’d shot to on of the beams. There were old horse stalls along one side and some abandoned equipment in the main area… Things I couldn’t quite identify that probably had to do with separating the wheat from the chaff or something similar.
I went in here a few years ago, before the roof gave way and walked around on the decaying floor boards. In the summer, vines climb in and out of the gaps in the walls.
My mom’s been photographing and drawing and painting this place for years. I want to see all her work on this place gathered together. It seems a very artful and fascinating project that she’s done because of the beauty in the old wood.
On Mom’s table, before everyone else arrived. I took lots of shots today, but I like these colors.
The family got together for a Christmas lunch. We do a little talent show. Very informal, sitting around the living room taking turns singing, playing an instrument, reading a poem, doing a cat’s cradle, telling a story. My sis and I did a jazzy version of Sentimental Journey that we probably should have practiced, but hey, it’s not Carnegie Hall!
On the way home, we stopped at the country store at Big Lake. This is the cottage my mom’s family rented at the lake for summer vacations. She met my dad, a local boy, when she was staying here. It turned out to be the first place they lived when they got married.
I could have sworn it was a quarter mile walk from the store to the water, but it’s hardly any distance at all. The old store has been replaced, but I remember my wet footprints soaking into the worn grey wooden floorboards inside, and dipping into the cold water of an old fashioned cooler for an Orange Crush.
I’m loving all the pale pastels of winter.
Thought I’d better get to this early since I’m going to be in transit most of today!This was taken at the train station near my house (four miles.) It’s a little pool of light in a dark rural area. We can hear the train whistle from our house, and the coyotes usually answer back.
D dropped me off at 5:10 this morning and I waited in the 32 degree dark. The train came on time at 5:30. Not so bad when you’re bundled up and there’s no wind. It’s 31 in Indianapolis, where I’ll be landing around 11:40 pm local time. It’ll be colder there by then.Nice gentle ride in, which I take as a good omen for today. I have a four hour layover here at work. Thank goodness my in-box was empty this morning. I guess yesterday was the last-minute panic.
I decided not to bring my laptop with me in spite of the 8+ hours of travel time when I could use it. Just too heavy. I secured a table on the train and wrote notes about my fellow passengers and just had a good time. I do have writing materials and my USB drive with me, but taking a sanctioned break is going to feel good.My mom & sister will already be in a hotel in Indy when I get there. We’ll stay the night and drive back early in the morning. I’m looking forward to this SO MUCH!
It was a beautiful day yesterday when we walked down to the Smoke House restaurant for our Christmas lunch at work. Food and company were very good. It’s an old-Hollywood feeling place with big red booths and lots of dark wood. Decorated for Christmas within an inch of its life.
On the walk back… I dunno, I just wanted a couple of shots. My coworkers were nice enough to wait while I took them. This is outside Warner Brothers Studios.
The beautiful Martin D45. D’s pride and joy. Sitting on a stand in the living room.
There’s something about the sound of a guitar. Flattens out my brainwaves and heartbeats in a most pleasant way.When I first met him, he didn’t have a TV. Just a guitar and an aquarium. I was very impressed. His music has brought us a whole world of friends and helped us get into camping with them.
I love to sing, but can’t play. Maybe one day.
You really can’t tell from the photo, but this little Christmas tree my coworker brought in is really cute. We tried putting it against various backgrounds, and this showed the decorations the best…while not showing off our tacky office.
I could have cropped it down, but I think the tree looks expectant and comfortable on this chair.Excuse me while I anthropomorphize everything in my life.
Okay, I admit it. I spent a lot of the day Saturday Christmas shopping. Thought I’d better grab a shot before I forgot. This is in a dressing room. I bought the berry-colored hoodie for myself!
Physically and mentally. D gets off at 2:30 and I worked at home this afternoon, so we were able to go out for a hike in daylight. I ran some ideas about the novel past him, and we kept hammering at the idea of finding a better reason for my central character to stay in Indiana for the summer. We came up with something that feels much better than any of my previous solutions to this question. AND it seems to mean that I have to throw away a whole lot less of what I’ve already done than I thought.
I came back inside and wrote out my ideas longhand and they expanded and I could see how to weave them into existing scenes. I’ll need to do some more research, but I think I’ve found a very good source or two.
Photo: My novel isn’t really about these people; it’s about the land they farmed. But I hope it honors their determination and hard work. This is my great-grandfather Matthew, his wife Sarah and my great-aunts and uncles. Matthew came from Germany in the late 1800s. We think Sarah was pregnant with my grandpa David when this was taken, which would make it something like 1897. (See the mule in the background on the left? I love that.)
Admittedly, this is a few miles north and a few thousand feet up from where I live, but I was thrilled to see snow on the ridge on my drive home tonight. I think this is Mount Emma, but I need to check this for sure.
Met with my friend Megs for writing and catching up. We went to this little diner, which has been there since 1949. It’s quieter in the afternoon and early evening than the nearby coffee house, and they serve amazing french fries.
We were writing when Megs said, “Look at the mountains.” That’s Mount Wilson back there, all bathed in pink. Somedays in L.A. you feel like they’ve dropped a big backdrop down about three blocks away with great scenary painted on it.Megs spent weeks this summer bringing in the hay on her great uncle’s farm back east, then went to a writer’s retreat for several more weeks. The break from L.A. has done her good. She’s grounded in her work and making good progress, in spite of last night’s struggle.
We both had a hard time with the words last night. After reading to each other, we both expressed amazement that the other wasn’t satisfied with the work. The puzzle is to figure out why the pretty words don’t add up to what we want them to.I like writing dates. It’s good to have friends to pace you every so often.
I love building a fire in the fireplace on a chilly Sunday morning. It's conducive to reading...the newspaper, a book of poetry, a novel.
These doors lead nowhere, except the parking lot behind the Elegant E's building.
This feeder is on the side of my garage, right outside the kitchen window. My camera doesn’t seem to move fast enough to get the shots I’m trying to take. I love watching the birds in the back yard and at the various feeders around the house.
Market--mmm!--then went to see "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" at The Grove.
the movie before she asked me. I wish I had listened to her excitement about it before admitting to not getting into it. (I haven't seen or read any of the Harry Potters.) I remind myself of the the line from the Paul Simon song that goes "There's no tenderness beneath your honesty." I really could have been honest later. I think we know each other well enough that she wouldn't have felt I let her go on and then ambushed her with a different opinion.
I love working with geeks. We were all drawn to this place because we get to exploit the pop-culture lint-catching functions of our brains, which are over developed. Here we are loved for knowing who was in what movie when, the approximate date that Silly Putty came on the market, or the birth and death dates of William Shakespeare. Here, we share in each other’s cultural rituals and explorations.
Today we opened the first door on the advent calendar I brought in. At least two of us grew up with these. We taught the others to try and guess what Christmas- or gift-related item might be pictured behind the little paper door. Guesses were good: a doll, a top, a Teddy Bear, Santa Claus, and a duck. (I suspect that L’s been here before. I, too, have seen inexplicable items like ducks show up on advent calendars.)It turned out to be a candle, so we gave the chocolate to C, whose guess of Santa Claus miraculously seemed the closest to all of us. See how we all get along? Whether competition will become more fierce as the days wind down remains to be seen.
Hmm, 24 days to Christmas and already two chocolate themed photos in a row. When does desire become fetish?
The fabulous MM just returned from visiting family in Maine and brought back chocolates, including this chocolate lobster with candy rocks. This is so much cooler than the saltwater taffy I brought back from South Carolina. Leave it to Maine to do this up right.
She also brought a box of their regular chocolates, each of which has an individual design.Here’s Haven’s Candies site: http://shop.havenscandies.com/default.aspx
My only question: If people from Spain are called Spaniards, are people from Maine called Mainards?
I don’t know… I pulled into the parking lot in front of Don Cuco’s to pick up the salads D and I ordered for supper, and this photo just suggested itself. The light was right, eh?
Our little town (pop. around 2000) has a bit of a wild west theme going. This is the McDonald’s out by the freeway. They recently remodeled inside and removed the stuffed cowboy who used to sling a golden neon lariat. Wonder where that is now…The block-long downtown of Acton has a wooden sidewalk and old-fashioned facades. But I don’t think it comes off as too touristy because we actually use the businesses there: a market, post office, beauty shop, gym, real estate office and Chinese restaurant.
I was feeling low about progress on my novel rewrite. I lit this circle of friends candle last night. When the room is dark, it throws the shadows of the figures against the wall.
I realize that even a simple candle can feel like a companion sometimes. I’ve written a lot by candlelight, especially when working on the 1820s diary that makes up about 1/2 of my novel. I image that those little flames meant an awful lot to people in the vast darkness at the center of this country in the 19th century.
Extra photos for Sunday. D and I went out for a walk after dark last night. As we neared our house, these two dogs came out onto the street. Hey… These are the same dogs that some one called us about on Thursday, wondering if we’d seen them.
They’d been out wandering all this time and were ready to be friendly. Harley, the piggy pug, was the first to come up to us. Sadie felt that she had to be shy enough for both of them, but D coaxed both of them into the garage and shut the door behind them. The turkey scraps helped get them in, but they were still hungry and thirsty. I heated up a big container of very meaty turkey stew we were going to have for supper and poured it into a couple of plastic containers. They just grunted and slurped and gobbled it all down. They were also very happy about the bowl of cool water I put down for them.
They were both very sweet. Harley even left his bowl mid-feast to come grunt-and-snuggle me with thanks! They were clearly clean and well-treated, and not used to roaming. Lucky the coyotes have plenty of bunnies and quail in the hills this year!We called the number on their collars and there was no answer. The house is just 5 up from ours, so we walked by, but there was clearly no one home. I drove to our little downtown market and bought a couple of cans of Pedigree, and an alternate supper for us (ribs!). D put down an old blanket for them, and we left the light on in the garage.
They were on the blanket this morning, and were happy to get their dog food. It got down to 35 degrees last night, so they were probably glad for the protection of the garage. Couldn’t bring them in because of the birds. We did that once before with a stray and it just terrorized Dodger, even though he was in his cage.D just called to say that the dogs’ people called! A friend was supposed to be watching them. They’ll pick up the dogs this afternoon. Whew! We were hoping they weren’t gone for a week or something!
Sadly, the neighbor’s cat killed another bird from our back yard today. This blood is all that’s left of a life.
The neighbor threw all her five cats out of the house a few years ago when she became allergic. Grrr.“The rest of them ran away!” she says. More likely they were eaten by coyotes. We’ve found cat skulls on our walks in the hills around here.
I like cats a lot, but I don’t understand how animal-loving people can let them roam to kill. Domestic and feral cats are the number one reason for diminishing numbers of songbirds in the U.S., I’ve read.I just have to hope that the population balance works in favor of the birds because I’m feeding them. I understand that I’m creating an unnatural concentration of them by providing seed and water, but it still hurts to find blood and body parts on the sidewalk.
It just struck me that this smear looks like the Nike swoosh. Hmm. In another context, it could make a political statement. I dunno about what, but…you know, dEEp.
Fooling around with my new camera. These are the trays leaning against the wall on one of my kitchen counters.
It’s never a good sign. You pick up your mail, and there’s a return envelope that you addressed to yourself several months ago and you see a long narrow shadow inside. This is a literary magazine’s consolation prize: a nice bookmark with subscription information printed on it.
In this case, there were two. One bears an advertisment for a literary conference. The rejection note is better than most. It includes the line, “Your work made it deep into the decision-making process. After several readings of your submission, the prose editors met and decided that this particular piece isn’t quite right for this particular issue.”They wish me luck and invite me to submit more work to Hayden’s Ferry Review. I will.
But at this point, chances of publishing within the calendar year are pretty much nil. My other submission hasn’t come back yet, but it’s late dear readers, very late.
Took my new 5mp camera this afternoon for my usual hike around the neighborhood. It was hard to choose which one to post here, but this one wins for being representative of the day and the time of day. The tree in the foreground is not lit, but the yellow one is because sunlight’s still coming through a notch in the hills. It was 60 degrees on the front porch, 70 on the back porch when we left the house around 3:30 this afternoon. Beautiful day!
I bought a somewhat dinged up drop leaf coffee table at a yard sale earlier this year. We don’t typically use a coffee table because the couch reclines and I can just imagine the tea flying through the air… Anyway, I put a tablecloth over it and expanded it to its full length and it worked just great. I love that I didn’t spend a bundle on it, and it folds away nicely under one of the front windows with a plant on it when it’s not in use. A well spent seven dollars, indeed!
We had dinner around 1:30, pretty much as planned. The turkey came out very well. I’d snipped fresh rosemary and thyme from my backdoor garden earlier in the day and gently sautéed it along with 5-6 gloves of garlic in a quarter pound of butter. Let that cool a bit and then smeared it over the turkey. Placed some tiny fresh sage leaves on top at the last minute. The dressing was enhanced with sage and pine nuts.Cousin P and I had fun making the gravy. I get gravy terrors, honestly. It turned out well, even though it probably had a bit too much cornstarch in it. It was a bit gelatinous when it cooled. Of course, couldn’t find the thermal gravy boat anywhere. Lucky to have found the roaster, actually.
V brought a pear/walnut/bleu cheese spinach salad, which we all love. P & M brought the mimosa fixings, sour cream mashed potatoes, and a couple dozen homemade tamales for my freezer—the best sort of hostess gift for me! I also provided steamed broccoli—out of some misguided sense of needing something not starchy on the table—and homemade cranberry sauce. The infamous pies came out after a break and a walk. I made fresh whipped cream for them. Mmmm.Everyone paid a nice amount of attention to our birds, Dodger (Timneh African Grey) and Rocky (Budgie), who did perfect Phinneas T. Frog impressions all day. What? Me talk? Me play with toys? In my experience birds are a combination of dogs and cats. They are always happy to see you, but they cannot be imposed upon to perform tricks unless they really want to.
I love that we have a holiday like this. It’s all about family and friends, and remembering to be grateful. I am grateful for so many things, most of them involving my connections to other people through family ties, friendships, work and the Internet. And my connection to nature through my pets and the place I am lucky enough to live. I guess the umbrella thankfulness has to be that I was raised in a way that I can appreciate what’s been given to me and what I have earned.Enough of the seriousness. Still wondering about my foot? I always use those Reynolds baking bags to roast meats. I’d left the racks in the oven in the bottom two slots. When I started to slide the pan into the oven I could see that the bag would be too close to the fire, so I took out the top rack and rested it in front of the sink. Yeah, you guessed it. I am typically barefoot around the house unless it’s really cold, which it wasn’t. I went to the sink to rinse my hands and stepped on the rack. Much hopping and cursing and scattering of ice cubes upon the floor ensued. It stung for quite a while and I have an interesting shiny stripe diagonally across the bottom of my foot and one toe, but no blistering.
Now it’s time for morning-after breakfast leftovers. Yum!Photo: Dodger shares in the feast!
Ha. You know, I meant to write The Pie Line for a title, but clearly Freudian slips can happen on keyboards, too.
I went to pick up Thanksgiving pies yesterday at Marie Callender’s. Walked there from my office around 9am and was informed that they wouldn’t be opening until 9:30. I was debating whether to go back to my office and return later when a guy walked up and asked when they open.“Oh,” he said, “I didn’t think they opened till ten.”
Oh, really? He was picking up 60 pies to give to his print advertising clients. He said the line would be crazy pretty soon and just keep getting worse. Told me war stories about previous Thanksgivings. Lines all the way around the block and so on. So I stayed put.Before long a couple came over. He got into line (4th) and she sat on the bench by the “Pie and Feast Pickup” door and proceeded to regail (read: torture) us with stories of times she’d been in line and someone had cut in, or she let someone in and others complained, or she wrestled a big guy for a Christmas tree, or someone complained that she was blocking an aisle at Costco. OH MY GOD. She was an expert at making us all feel the annoyance she’d felt on each of these occaisions.
I am one of those people who will smile fixedly, politely at people like this, but after the second story, I started looking at the ground, anywhere but at her because I didn’t want to encourage her. The print ad guy with whom I’d been having a nice civilized conversation, stepped to the far side of the sidewalk to smoke a cigarette. Wimp! Abandoner!Other people in line were also glassy-eyed, but the woman’s husband and this perfectly sweet older east Indian man were both still paying attention to her. NOOOOOOO! This went on nonstop for half an hour.
MC’s didn’t actually open until 9:45. I was first in line. I’d considered at first letting the talking woman and her husband go first because they said they’d been there since seven, sitting in their car. But when the door finally opened, I thought, you know, she’s said all this nasty stuff about people who take “cut-sies,” who am I to wrankle other people in line? Also, I thought she owed me a little something at that point.So, after 45 minutes in line, I was the first through the door. I let them keep the 2 cents change because when the register popped open the poor teenaged cashier found she had no money. Wow. It’s going to be a long day for them.
I went back to work feeling good about not having to stand in some 2 hour line later in the day. When I drove back past the restaurant on my way home I anticipated a nice little self-satisfied gloat that I’d gotten there early.Ahem. There was ONE PERSON in line outside the door. ONE.
I had just called my mom for my drive-time cellphone chat (hands free, FYI) and had to say, “I was lied to!”Hence, the Freudian slip when I typed the title.
Ah, well, they’re on the counter now. I’m going to go make cranberry sauce and stuffing.
Mambo Braziliano! MS, T and I went to Mambo’s for lunch. Yummy Carribean salad. I usually get the chicken, but was talked into the pulled pork. It’s served hot on a bed of lettuce with cheese and then a layer of hot black beans on top. I love the wilted lettuce and everything is spiced nicely. They serve bread and salsa before and maduros (fried bananas) after. YUM.
The restaurant is in Burbank, CA. This building was a service station before it was a restaurant. They’ve slowly camouflaged it over the years we’ve been going there, but the bathrooms were still so reminiscent of a gas station the last time I was in them, that I make efforts not to have to use them. Service is surly sometimes, but efficient. It’s a bit off the beaten path, but always full at lunch time.
