Eighteen trees were delivered today for the house up the hill. Fortunately the diesel rumble and forklift beeping was short-lived.
Scaffolding coming down from what appears to be an elevator shaft on the project around the corner.
I did make those peanut butter cookies. They’re good! Like the recipe recommends, I dipped the cross-hatching fork in ice water instead of flour. What a difference. After making these cookies dozens of times, I somehow never read that part (no comment).
But mostly I’m here to say it’s hot. Too hot to walk the full Langley-Cypress loop, so we cut through the schoolyard. My guess is this heat will last until the end of September.
I can’t believe I haven’t take a single dunk in water yet this year. Maybe Crystal Lake later?
After spending an hour or so adding to the History Page on this blog, I hit DISCARD instead of UPDATE (also no comment). I was not a happy camper. Of course I found no way to restore the revisions.
Okay okay! I should’ve done this years ago, but at my doctor’s suggestion I am now leaving my phone downstairs at bedtime. I do the NYTimes crossword sitting in the living room instead of propped up by pillows. But more importantly, there will be no more grabbing the device and reading in the wee hours (sometimes for many sleepless hours).
It is good to minimize exposure to blue light and to shun extraordinarily upsetting information when I should be resting. What a shitshow the news is! Watching the collapse of the press is another and secondary shitshow to the campaigns, but one that informs all other shitshows and is really, really upsetting. (Of course you will have noticed that I still subscribe to the NYTimes).
I’ll save my thoughts about the Biden question for another post (or for no post at all), but let me just say I flip from one side of the resignation idea to the other at least ten times a day.
My PCP also suggested no books in bed, but there I push back. It feels really good to go back to my old custom of reading a novel for 30 minutes or so before turning out the light.
(How else am I gonna get through Lonesome Dove? Have you seen the size of that book?)
The proof from Amazon arrived and there is, I confess, some magic in holding my book even if the cover was screwed up (see that white band along the bottom?)
Naturally I found a mistake. Not a typo so much as an out and out mistake. Referring to a character’s horse as male and then three paragraphs later, as female. Oops!
Ken is very patient and good thing because I’ve found other words that I want deleted or changed and at this point that means fixing three versions of the manuscript.
Mostly though I’m re-reading and making the historical notes that in my Author’s Note I promised would be published on my blog. I’ll probably post it before it’s done and revise as I go. There will be tons of disclaimers — I am not a historian, my research was idiosyncratic (i.e. the opposite of thorough), etc.
But there is a lot that I can confidently assert — that the name of the family’s property on Antigua was in fact Cabbage Tree Plantation, that Eliza, contrary to my telling, got her small pox variolation in England and not in South Carolina, that her mother was reported to have malaria.
The Notes are very much at odds with the standard disclaimer THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION, but I think readers might like to know what I based on the historic record. I’m especially committed to this idea when it comes to a couple of the most egregious and sadistic torments inflicted on the enslaved (I didn’t make it up!)
In thinking about how my snapshot of days through haiku differs from my usual blog posts, I realized that the short form doesn’t allow room for complaint or self-denigration. I might do too much of both as a rule.
So here’s to a fresher, more immediate style of blog posting.
With K at the office today, I can watch Kimmel at lunch without restraint.
I made too many lentils for last night’s linguine/lentil dish, so I may be on the hunt for a good lentil burger recipe this afternoon.
Finn did not bark at Winnie today. Winnie did not bark at Finn.
I don’t know why but watching a squirrel cross the sidewalk with an apple core in her mouth this morning filled me with gladness.
Trout lily’s up. Solomon seal is not. Will I or won’t I see a jack-in-the-pulpit this year? The suspense. Virginia bluebells have spread — how nice!
Going to California for three weeks next month and early June. Given that it was 27 degrees here yesterday and that the weather in LA seems to have calmed down, I can’t wait.
Of course, it’s not about the weather.
Finished round 8 or 10 or who’s counting anymore of my novel. Cut around 5,000 words. But not enough. So later today I will copy the file, rename it “shorter Weight of Cloth” and delete five chapters. I have a pretty good idea which ones.
Sometimes I get intimidated about the fact that people actually read these posts. Forgive the blindness imbedded in such folly, but I know I’m not alone in this weird double-take.
For instance, I want to post more about anti-racism again and about my book, now titled The Weight of Cloth, but part of me wonders — who am I? Well not about the book, which I am amply qualified to speak about, but about more general issues of structural racism.
I’ll get over myself. Have no fear!
So here is a simpler kind of post. Show and tell. And really, a chance to note recent gifts.
ONE BLEND. A blend of exotic spices prepared by a friend was one of my favorite gifts this year. A pinch flavors a big pot of stock on the stovetop at this very moment. It turns out that I committed to trying new-to-me flavors this year before even recognizing the thought. A resolution? Yes, and a discovery — that the better resolutions might be those that you adopt before even making note of them. No forcing.
Another Ottolenghi recipe. Ripped from the book PLENTY’s cover. This is my creation tho — both the food and the photo. And yea, it was tasty!
ONE BOX. Those of you that follow my cousin Ginny Mallon will recognize her artistry on this repurposed cigar box. I LOVE IT. When she started posting them on Instagram this fall, I knew I needed to give one to my husband for Christmas. Him being a Cancer was the excuse, my adoring them, the real impetus.
And since Ginny wouldn’t let me pay her, I received a gift too!
THREECLOTHS. The first is a close up and finished. The second is almost ready to be bound. And the third is a close up of one that feels like I will never finish it. A progression of sorts.
All I want to say about them today is how liberating I found Jude’s recent comment about how she doesn’t see ugly (or something like that). I was referring to a quilt not shown here. I’ve always worked with ugly and messy, maybe even taken a tiresome pride in the fact, but this feels different. It gives me staying power.
Getting back to basics includes expressing gratitude, so let’s start there. I’m grateful for my new juicer, for walks with the dog, especially when K comes along. I’m grateful for hands that still work well enough to be able to make myself a new dog-walk-bag (i.e. one actually commodious enough for treats, poop bags, phone, and masks).
I’m grateful I know what an Oxford comma is, that bleach works on dirty toilets, that I now have chargers in four critical spots in the house.
Also for the gratitude file: the tiny health thing that had me worried even though I pretty thoroughly tamped the worry down, turned out to be 100% nothing. Whew! I was flying high yesterday.
I’m grateful for friends that care about me enough to say: take a news break, Dee, even if I have yet to really manage that.
Besides noting gratitude, historically another basic blog task has been to record progress on projects.
My studio is cleaner and neater than it’s been in forever! How nice is that? Still awful but progress is progress. Also, I’ve been sewing a fair amount without comment here.
For instance, this doll came off The Shelf of Unfinished Creatures last week. I’m calling her the Patron Chicken-Saint of Delayed Success. Maybe just Chicken of Trust would do?
As I wrapped her pipe cleaner arms in fabric, began her wings, and gave her an elegant black lace slip, I toyed with the idea of trusting the timing of things (see note about waiting, above). What if things really do happen when they’re supposed to?
Can you spot the Oxford comma in the paragraph above? I know Liz and Deb will, in any case. Speaking of Deb, the wings will be made of Georgian Magic and I’m pretty sure the polka dot fabric for the arms came from Tina. More gratitude.
Lastly, isn’t it nice to have neighbors with a sense of humor?
