what I am is a dirty list-maker

1. Why does Firefox keep crashing on me??

2. I heard this guy on Bob Edwards Weekend yesterday. More alarm bells.


This guy's book scares Michael Pollan. Holy Cow!

3. We celebrated the 4th by going to our quaint little 4th of July picnic downtown with our friends Erin, Liam, and Nathan. Nathan is Liam's uncle, and the current love of Lyra's life. The last time she saw him (maybe 2 months ago), she literally wailed inconsolably when he left. When I told her on Friday afternoon that he would be joining us, she said "Who's Nathan?". Anyway, after she had re-kindled her affections, we listened to the local symphony orchestra playing the usual round-up of patriotic tunes, plus (go figure) Star Wars and The Phantom of the Opera, after which canons were fired. Fun! Sometimes when I look around here I realize that we really and truly have moved to the Heartland of America, all Norman Rockwell and shit. Which is heart-warming and nice alternating with conservative and scary. The rednecks have different accents, but they are still rednecks. Which makes it sound like we didn't enjoy the picnic, which is not at all true!! We totally did. Partly because, unlike Texas, it was about 90 degrees with a cool breeze. Delightful! Everyone was very friendly. I saw a Labradoodle (adorable. I totally want one.). We will for sure go next year.

4. But, about what I just said regarding conservatives here, and rednecks, etc.? Well, Thursday evening, I caught up with my friend Kerry, and her friends Maaike & Pat, in Boulder where they had attended a conference. We ate at Centro on Pearl Street and drank Damselflies, yum! (Grey Goose pear vodka, fresh lime juice, fresh ginger, ginger soda + plum preserves) And! While we were eating, seated at a window table, we got to watch an (apparently) Almost-Independence-Day! bike parade which went right by our window.


(**Amendment: I think it was a weekly Thursday night Cruiser ride, made more festive because of the July 4th holiday atmosphere**) There were somewhere between 100 and 150 lighted & costumed riders who stopped traffic and flashed peace signs and sported tutus and crowns. Guess what, ya'll? There was even a picnic table on wheels. Basically there were 4 riders on each side facing each other, pedalling a table down the street. Can you believe it? So, as conservative as Longmont sometimes feels, crazy-assed Boulder is only 12 miles away. Thank God.

Girl Drink Drunk

Ever since Sinda introduced me to the delectable spirit St.~Germain, I feel a little like Dave Foley in this old sketch. I can't get enough St. Germain cocktails. And look, Ma: no blender, coconuts, fruit, or parasols required! Or paper clips. Okay, well, yes there is a lemon twist, but honestly I never twist a lemon. That unnecessary step would only delay the trip to my lips. So light, so refreshing, so floral, so perfect for summer.

getaway, part two

Friday night we ate and drank at Osteria Marco.

i love the lamps, and the green wallpaper in the loo.

more resting, then Saturday night we met up with Kris' friend Liz and ate & drank at The Ninth Door.

devils on horseback

cafe and postres

We rode the free shuttle back to the hotel.

Kris & Liz got all caught up on high school gossip

Sunday morning we ate Mother's Day Brunch at Rioja.

St. Germain cocktail complete with house-made grapefruit bitters and grapefruit gelee. Deee-lish!



and then it was time to go back to the airport. Now I'm verklempt, so talk amongst yourselves. Topic: Mother's Day getaway 2010. We're thinking a warm beach in a nation knee-deep in avocados.

Oh yeah, we also went to the Hammond Candy Factory to buy peppermint pillows, elected not to attend the Chocolate extravaganza, but did see Baby Mama. Fun!

Now go wish Sinda a belated Happy Birthday!

getaway, part one

We stayed at the Magnolia Hotel. We shopped in Boulder at Boulder Bookstore and Prana, where Kris flirted with a girl from Tyler, Texas. We ate at Centro and had a really bad server named Ashlee.

nipples!

Suddenly a stranger appeared. Poking her head out of the bathroom stall she appeared startled to see a photo session taking place.




We rested, and we read.


to be continued...

Did you know blogger will only let you use up to 200 characters worth of labels? annoying.

I'll be away this long weekend, in Downtown Denver with the 2 best friends a girl could have. Sinda & Kris are flying in tonight so we can recreate our lost weekend 3! years ago, this time without IKEA, but with the Prana Store in Boulder. Also, this time we can ALL drink, because no one has a bun in the oven. That we know of.
Loopy, I'll do my best, but you know how she is.

Try not to be too jealous, ya'll.

food meme

Sinda tagged me for this one. You are supposed to take each letter from your blogging name and give a little food fact to go with it. Here goes.

P is for Pear. You thought I would do Pie here, right? No, it must be pears because of one of my favorite meals:

a perfectly ripe (so plump! so juicy!) Comice pear, cored and sliced into about 6 or 8 slivers

a big room-temperature hunch of blue cheese (Stilton, Gorgonzola, or something else salty & a little crumbly. The saltiness is necessary to offset the sweetness of the pear & the troisieme ingredient in this menage).

a glass of lovely Port wine. Nothing too expensive or pretentious, because you are going to have pear juice running down your sleeve. Maybe a 20 year Warre's tawny or that 10 year Otima. Good stuff. And yes, it is a meal. Okay, have some bread with it if you want. But it better be good and crusty.

E is for Eggs because you can't make a cake, or pudding, or pancakes or much else without them. I so admire and envy Jennifer for her backyard chickens. The notion of walking just outside to pluck (steal, really) a warm egg from the bosom of downy feathers just so you can crack it over a hot pan for breakfast is so primal and alluring. Someday I will have my own hens.

another E is for Eggplant. Baked with Parmesan, or in Caponata, or in Ratatouille (even though, according to Wikipedia, the original dish from Nice did not contain eggplant) or just plain grilled with a little olive oil, I love eggplant. I still remember the first time I ever ate it. It was fried, and I ate it with ketchup*. Even then I recognized how perfectly the flavor of cooked tomatoes compliments Eggplant. Yum.

V is for the velvety texture I love in foods like Panna Cotta and Point Reyes blue cheese, smooth and silky tofu or squid.

I is for Italy, whose foods are my very most favorite. Just in case you haven't guessed.

S is for Soup, so endlessly warming, satisfying, nourishing. S is also for Nigel Slater. I wish he lived next door so we could eat coffee cake together and gossip.

H is for fresh Herbs which improve the flavor of most foods, and which I'm really missing since we moved. I'm so accustomed to just walking outside to snip some fresh Rosemary, Sage, Thyme, Oregano, or Basil in the summer. There is nothing to eat in this yard. Well, perhaps the mushrooms, but none of us are willing guinea pigs. I have recently started a very small herb garden in one pot for transporting in or out depending on the weather. It has a decent-sized sage plant (though not Bergarten Sage, which is my favorite), one tiny thyme plant and one tiny rosemary plant. I can safely harvest a bit of sage, but I don't dare take any from the others for fear of endangering their wee lives. So I just caress their leaves and smell my fingers.


I'm tagging Meno, Antonia & Meg. This is a fun one!

* I was about 12 y.o.

partakable

This morning it was 50 degrees. Right now it is down to 85 degrees, after reaching the low 90's. I'm enjoying one of my favorite adult beverages, Breckenridge Brewery's Vanilla Porter. This is a luscious bread pudding of a beer: dark, rich, & toasty.

Just finished Life of Pi last night. Still pondering the ending. It thoroughly enthralled me. I even found myself nauseated on the characters' behalf during the very seasick passages.

Tonight I will finish reading Finn Family Moomintroll to the girls. I'm so glad to know the library here has 2 other Moomin books. The girls are captivated, especially by Thingummy & Bob. I like The Hemulen and The Groke.

So, just now, I googled Thingummy & Bob to find an image I could steal and I found a website where you can buy all these Moomin character dishes! Lookit:

Thingummy and Bob on a plate for 26 EU! They even have a Hattifatteners mug! I'd forgotten about them. They scared the shit out of The Hemulen! Deservedly so, since he stole their sacred barometer, but still.

the first taste of Autumn

(written at approx. 8am) Woke up a few minutes ago to the sounds of small, sturdy, bare feet thumping up and down the hallway. And to a temp. of 53 degrees outside. It is crisp! Thanks for telling me about the crab apples. There are also lots of good eating apples which grow around here, and you can buy them at the Farmer's Market. Yesterday, while Mr. man was at the Vet's office with Bono, the girls and I went to the F.M. For supper last night we ate 2 beautiful & delicious grass-fed beef ribeye steaks, which Mr. Man cooked on the grill, along with yummy orange pepper. On the side we ate a delicious room-temp salad of fresh green beans and new potatoes tossed with garlicky & mustardy vinaigrette. We drank a South African Cabernet/Shiraz blend called Herding Cats. Not so bad once it had some air in it.

(written at approx. 10:15am) Now, I must dash as we are off for a walk in the 58 degree air. It is still cloudy outside, sadly. The sky is white as far as you can see. The Fort Collins NPR station says there is a chance of snow there tonight. Fuck! Not quite ready for that, but I'm sure it wouldn't make it all the way down here quite yet. Ta!

p.s. Got to watch Nigella's Feast this am, for the first time. The girls adore her now! She prepared an Indian feast and I must remember to print those recipes. On this episode, she said "The great Nigel Slater calls me 'the Queen of the frozen peas'. I'm so honored to hold that title!".

3 more things

1. The corn we bought at the farmer's market last Saturday was, I think, the best corn I've eaten since I was a kid eating homegrown corn at my Grandparent's table. It was so juicy you needed a shower afterwards, and so tender it seemed like the kernels didn't even have a skin on them. It was so good, I was prompted to phone Jennifer to tell her about it, because she tells this great story involving her Dad and some illicitly-obtained corn, so now corn always reminds me of her.


2. Did you all already know about the Carnegie Libraries? I must have learned about them at some point and then forgotten but now I'm interested in them again. There was a library called the Carnegie Library in Franklin, Texas which we would always drive past on the way from Austin to my Grandparents' place in Grapeland, Texas. Mr. Man and I would stop at the Dairy Queen next door to it sometimes, and ponder the name. How could it have been named after that Carnegie and be way out here in B.F. Egypt? Well, a few days ago I took a trip to our local library here only to find out that it was, many years ago, a Carnegie Library! So that sent me to old reliable Wikipedia to read more about it. Apparently, Andrew Carnegie would donate money to pay for buildings to house libraries in just about any community which asked for it, as long as they would abide by a few rules:

• demonstrate the need for a public library;
• provide the building site; and
• annually provide ten percent of the cost of the library's construction to support its operation.

He ended up financing the building of 2500 libraries around the country, in the belief that self-improvement through reading should be accessible to anyone. He may have been ruthless in the business world, but he at least he really knew how to give something back to the people.

3. The He'Brew beer was pretty dang good. I love me a brown beer, and this stuff is dark & rich and, as the label says "Messiah Bold". I'm not sure it is quite "the beer I've been waiting for", but I look forward to enjoying some more tonight. And on those days when kids have given me hell, it just may be a savior after all.

random mutterings

1. You need to know this first: I always, always sleep with a glass of water by my bed. I don't even really need to drink from it every night but I know it is there waiting for me should the urge arise. Well, I'm not sure why but for some reason at 12:30am last Sunday morning Bono (fat cat) decided that the glass needed to be knocked over, thus waking us and causing me to dash to the bathroom for a towel to to keep our brand new mattress from soaking it up. Because our mattress is resting on the floor, because we won't get our brand-new bedroom furniture until this coming Saturday. Which is why the water glass was on the floor, because of no bedside tables, that's why. Can you tell we've been reading Junie B. Jones? Anyway, I learned my lesson about keeping the glass of water on the floor next to me, so the next night I moved a box over to the bedside so I could use it as a table. It was perfect. I had my Michael Tolliver Lives book, my Carmex, and my water glass. And guess what? At 12:42am, I once again was awakened by the sound of water spilling onto the floor. W. T. F.? is he doing? And why? So, once again, I dash to the bathroom to fetch a towel. After all the cleaning up and the cat-cursing was done, I went back to the bathroom to hang up the towel and noticed a particularly rank odor drifting in through the bathroom window, which was open. Apparently the neighbors' dogs had frightened a skunk, which released its funk into our backyard, judging by the strength of the smell. So we closed the windows and went back to sleep. What a night. Luckily, by the next morning, the odor was almost completely gone.

2. The second neighbor we've met lives across the street and is a 17 year old who loves to babysit. Yippee! They moved here from Taylor, Texas.

3. The guy who installed our cable was adorable. His task was not made easy by the dickhole Dish installers who came before him, but he was intrepid and charming, even while regaling me of tales of his horrible ex-wife. She sounded like a nightmare who seriously damaged his Buddhist calm. He also told me about his legendary great-uncle, whose story is fascinating.

He was sort of a Japanese Oskar Schindler except that he wasn't a businessman, but a diplomat.
I love these kinds of stories about people who just refuse to participate, even passively, in cruelty or injustice. And it is a good thing he wasn't in the U.S. at the time, or he would have been imprisoned in an internment camp. I continue to be appalled by that era of our history.


4. Look what I just bought at LiquorLand up the street:


It has to be good, right? It is the chosen beer.