Hot Night Cool Wine - Thursday 7/5/2007

Here's another idea for cooling down. Pinot Grigio with fresh rasperries and Griottines (morello cherries in kirsch).

I stepped out onto the porch to take the picture and quickly ducked back into the air conditioning. It got up to a hundred and eight in Acton today, and it was only sloooowly cooling down.

Cool Thing du Jour : This book, Food & Booze. It's a terrific collection of essays about--um--food and booze. With recipes!

[Image from the Internet]

Iced Tea Day - Wednesday 7/4/2007

It's definitely an iced tea kind of day in Southern California.

This nice little pitcher is from Don Hall's Factory restaurant in Fort Wayne, IN. When you ordered a beer you'd get this 24 ounce pitcher and a glass (not the one pictured). Same thing at the Old Gas House restaurant, where we used to go a lot.

The first time Hydra and I went out with my dad and mom for dinner, we went to the Factory and Mom commented on the cool pitchers.

Hydra disappeared for a few minutes and then came back with four pitchers...he'd bought one for each of us to take home. It was a funny moment. A little much, but very sweet. I used to use mine to serve a yogurt dipping sauce for fruit. (Do they still use these there or at the Gas House, I wonder? Deb?)

My recent facination with different kinds of water carafes (I took many more photos of them in France than I posted here) prompted me to pull this one down from the shelf today. I plan to sit at the library table, in the air conditioning, and look out at the sunny yard.

We gave passing consideration to the idea of going to our little town's 4th of July parade, but when we saw the forecast of 106 degrees, we let that go. It was already 80 on the shaded side of the house when the parade started at 9:00 a.m.

See? I told you Gus was tiny! Rocky's only about 4 inches tall, and he towers over the little guy!

They're sitting on Hyda's guitar stand and Rocky is singing to Gus.

Bookcrossing - Tuesday 7/3/2007

I've been a member of Bookcrossing for a few years, but every once in a while I actually free a few books. I'm going to drop these at Aroma Coffee & Tea later today.

It's a great concept. You mark books, register them, and release them into the wild. You hope that the person who picks them up leaves a comment about them. It's only happened to me once in the 27 releases.

Hope lives...

Cool Thing du Jour #1 : Bonny Doon Vineyard's website, where I went to find information about their terrific wine labels and was not disappointed. If you click on Learn Our Ways, and then Label Artists you'll get a nice look at their label art and the people behind it.

Cool Thing du Jour #2: The amazing art of Bascove, which I discovered because she's designed labels for the aforementioned Bonny Doon Vineyard. I love her subject matter and the way she treats it. It's reminscent of Diego Rivera and of some of the industrial art of the 1930s that I adore. Check out her whole portfolio if you go.

Blueberry Teacup - Monday 7/2/2007

Yeah, I know.

I don't need another tea cup. And I don't go out trolling for them. But this one was on sale at the Antiques Asylum in Palmdale, where Hydra and I went over the weekend in search of something very special that I'll have to reveal later.

Here are my reasons (rationalizations?) for buying it:

1) It is a different shape from any of my others, slightly bowed in around the center of the bowl.

2) Blueberries were my favorite thing to pick as a kid, because you don't have to get on your knees like you do for strawberries, and a good blueberry bog has fabulous black muck dirt that gets between your toes, and they taste amazing.

3) These blueberreis look like they could have been drawn by my sister, Pegerty.

4) It was on sale for $3.00. This is a great deal. I have paid as much as $25 for a particularly wonderful vintage teacup (that one is pale white lusterware with tiny handpainted blue birds flying across its surface).

New Plants - Sunday 7/1/2007

Faux heather in the evening light.

We did about 4 hours work of yard work on Sunday. We basically like it, but it is hard work. There were more things to give up on and clear away after last winter's freeze and subsequent drought.

Since temps are expected to be over 100 dergrees for the next week at least, I thought it unwise to try to plant too many things in the ground.

I have long admired the asparagus fern. This will have to be brought in over the winter, but I think it'll be worth it.