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.
Two women own the small company I work for. When one of them went on vacation last summer, the other came from the Massachusetts office to babysit the business. J found this African violet and another languishing on C’s desk, and brought them to me to see if they could be brought back to life.
They’ve been slowly gathering strength since I put the pots in little bowls of water on my window ledge at work. Look here! One of them is trying to bloom!
Family’s coming to our house for Thanksgiving. D is painting the doors. I touched up the paint on the gate. It was worn away by last year’s Christmas decorations rubbing against it in the wind. How pathetic is that?
We did a lot of things today, including shopping for the mainstays of the Thanksgiving feast, but so far this made me feel the most accomplished.Now to write…
E & G from my writing group came up for the day today. We wrote for 2 1/2 hours, hiked, had lunch, talked…and played ball with my budgie, Rocky.
He ran back and forth across the table, tapping on the ball, chattering in his musical little voice. He’d throw a ball off the edge of the table, then run over to look at where it fell. He gets a kick out of people picking up stuff for him, and G & E were both good playmates.They left about an hour ago. Rocky’s still sitting quietly on the table. Awww.
