Friday

Another afternoon on the river . . . I think I'm beginning to get the fact that only so many days are allotted to us.

Thursday

Stile Antico. I was nosing around YouTube, looking for them, because Sunday Baroque is championing this group, who are surprisingly young, when I discovered NPR's Tiny Desk Concert series. Quite eclectic! I may be linking to these again: Jakob Dylan next?

Wednesday

After the latest results, I won't be watching Dancing with the Stars again. (I know, hard to believe I'd watch it, right?) Also, no more 7 to 9 a.m. morning shows for the "news." I listened to NPR on the radio this morning; so much more in depth. Even the short fluff piece on Prince Wm. and co. was more insightful than all stuff on ABC.

Tuesday

What I've been watching when I'm knitting: Pleasantville Community Television; Ben Cheever is a pretty good host, I think. Eclectic guests, to be sure.

Monday

Fish Fight is Hugh Fearnsley-Whittingstall's latest endeavor. Although he is championing the North Sea, we have Sea Web and Monterey Bay Aquarium to further the cause in US as well as international waters.

Sunday plus: Natalie Merchant

Saturday

Knitting group; finished a scarf! but not the International Scarf Exchange one; that one is giving me grief.

It is parents' weekend at L's college, and Miss Mouse is taking L all around. I am eager to hear the details!

The final 3 feet of gutter to clean out is calling me. I meant to take photos today. Alas.

Friday

yesterday, we couldn't hack it (how about some good news? I know transitions aren't easy, but they don't have to be so difficult . . .), so we left our posts midafternoon for this place,
where we watched the river from a serene deck. The happy hour prices weren't too bad either  . . .

poem

I think this just about sums it up

In the Middle
–Barbara Crooker

of a life that's as complicated as everyone else's
struggling for balance, juggling time.
The mantle clock that was my grandfather's
has stopped at 9:20; haven't had time
to get it repaired. The brass pendulum is still,
the chimes don't ring. One day you look out the window,
green summer, the next, and the leaves have already fallen,
and a grey sky lowers the horizon. Our children almost grown,
our parents gone, it happened so fast. Each day, we must learn
again how to love, between morning's quick coffee
and evening's slow return. Steam from a pot of soup rises,
mixing with the yeasty smell of baking bread. Our bodies
twine, and the big black dog pushes his great head between;
his tail is a metronome, 3/4 time. We'll never get there,
Time is always ahead of us, running down the beach, urging
us on faster, faster, but sometimes we take off our watches,
sometimes we lie in the hammock, caught between the mesh
of rope and the net of stars, suspended, tangled up
in love, running out of time.

Wednesday

I'm trying to think and be positive; yes, that's right. You heard me. Getting out and getting busy with the rake helps. I guess sitting in front of the computer screen, being zapped by soul-sapping rays isn't cutting it.

I'm reading (well, the book is sitting around, glaring at me) James Joyce's Ulysses, but I'm only up to page 10. I tore through Portrait of the Artist as a teenager. I need to turn that receptor back on. As it is, I can barely sit still to read catalog copy. It's hard to sit and read for pleasure when I read all day for pay.

Tuesday!

Hunter Museum

I have spent the entire day, trying to alphabetize a reference section, plus fiddling with adding periods after authors' initials and trying to figure out a bunch of tables that the author didn't want to deal with. I need to find something more satisfying to do. I know, I know—all work is meaningful, not just "creative" highfalutin positions. But gee whiz.

Plus my rate has not kept apace w/cost of living/inflation. The flesh is being stripped from my bones. I keep watching these so-called financial experts on the morning "news" shows (since when is news considered showing a clip from yesterday's Oprah's talk show of her talking to M. Jackson's children? whatever . . .), but they are talking to people who I assume have regular jobs. But what is regular now?

sunday activity

The view from the Bluff View: those specs are regatta participants

Sunday plus: Lucy Wainright Roche

Sardonic? how about heart wrenching ...

Reel

I'm remembering John C. Campbell, listening to this . . .


Those years are leaves on the ground . . .

if this doesn't post correctly, the links were to YouTube YoYo Ma . . .

regatta weekend

summer's end, after Election Day

last of the basil, to make pesto for the freezer.



I used more walnuts than pine nuts in the mix; at $39.00 a pound, pine nuts are too dear! when I'm feeling flush, I grab a handful from the bulk bin. And I'm always shocked at how much that handful costs.



I read somewhere long ago that you shouldn't add the cheese to the mix until you are ready to combine it with the pasta (or whatever). So I don't, though I don't know why that would make much of a difference, do you?

in a pickle

well, perhaps the state's residents are now in such a condition after yesterday's election, but while the red tide rolled in, I was making the most of a lovely cauliflower.

breaking it up

Using my made-in-France-Christmas present slicer . . . which is a handy tool

hotting up the kettles; the cauliflower got blanched in the green one.

onions coming to a boil in a vinegar/sugar mixture that will pickle the cauliflower

sterilizing the jars

blanched c. in said jars, w/onion. Then pickling liquid over all. A canning funnel comes in very handy. I hadn't done this in so long, I was a bit rusty.

In the canner; do you see a face? I do . . . who is it? Protector of all canners? the Madonna?

et, voila!

all that was left, which I threw into last night's vegetable mix for supper:

Pickles have to cure for about 4 weeks; we'll see how I did . . .

Sauerkraut?

To a green thought in a green shade. –A. Marvell, from "Thoughts in a Garden"

OK, I've tried this before, and the results were not just inedible, they were scary—gloppy, gray mass of . . . what?

I'm trying it again (please excuse the less than sharp photos; I don't know if this is due to overexcitement of starting the process again, or fear of freakish results)


Using the method from Eugenia Bone's Well-Preserved (Clarkson Potter, 2009)

shredded cabbage + 1-1/2 Tbl of pickling salt

My own touch, to keep out creepy crawlies (natural, too).

Bag of 1 qt water + 1-1/2 Tbl pickling salt; per Ms Bone, it acts as a weight, and if it leaks, it leaks only brine.

If I can bring myself to haul out the canning equipment, I intend to make pickled cauliflower from this book as well. Cauliflowers are on sale at all the groceries here now, firm, meaty, sparkling white. So, onward!

November 1, 2010

from The Tempest
Act IV Scene I

Prospero. Be cheerful, sir:
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision
the cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
as dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with sleep.

–W. Shakespeare

"The first mention of The Tempest is in the royal Account Books of the Revels Office: On Hallowmass night, November 1st 1611, 'a play called the Tempest' was performed before the most cultured of kings, James I." from Poem a Day, edited by Karen McCosker & Nicholas Albery

hello

Yes, I'm posting every day in November, the mundane, the boring, the tragic; I'm letting it all go. Maybe I'll even have an insight or two. Who knows?