Category Archives: Home & Garden

Rain on Father’s Day

4 Replies

Kind of swampy out there.

We took Finn on the short loop and good thing, it started to rain as we rounded our corner.

This purple hoola hoop put me in mind of how vision gets cropped. Also, how random things can be. What’s inside the circle and what’s outside? Who left this here?

I’m working on this ground today and will write #PostcardstoVoters today, alerting Ohio voters to an August special election. NPR story here. First the GOP banned August elections, then they made an exception for this one. This resolution would make it harder to amend the constitution.

Why? Because “a group of doctors and citizens is currently gathering signatures to put an abortion rights amendment on the November ballot.”

On the Father’s Day menu: braised lamb shanks on cheesy grits with green beans in the side.

Instagram story includes K with the boys, K’s father, and three old photos of my father.

Here’s to all the good fathers in the world. I wish my boys could’ve met mine.

Plaid door. Satin moon.

8 Replies

After two zoom calls and a dog walk, I had the day to myself, and also the house. I enjoyed going between the ironing board in the living room and the bins of cloth in the basement. Up and down the stairs. It felt like getting back to something I’d been missing and didn’t know how much.

The buttons on this one are coming off — too much like eyes. Whimsical is okay but not distracting.

Composed years ago, this little house quilt was languishing in a pile.

Cloth: plaid flannel — one of the boys’ pjs; wool challis from a scarf that belonged to my mother; luscious indigo strip dyed by me years ago. I can’t remember who wore the dark shirt behind the house, but I’m pretty sure that I bought the vintage hankie (roof) on eBay once upon a time.

Auditioning my barn on a stormy background. The foreground is stitched already, which is the only sewing I managed to accomplish in California.

I just inserted that thread crumb moon this morning. If I keep it, I’ll work some purple into the foreground.

Speaking of not getting much done, I am tired today and don’t even feel like walking the dog.

Yellow arrives out front. Such a cheerful color, yellow!

Home!

17 Replies

Back to the land of sharp knives, automatic ice dispensation, and good reading light.

I will get my grubby paws on the remote and not let go for awhile. I will not listen to a single ad for thyroid eye disease, Kars4Kids, or Liberty Mutual (I swear if I had to watch that dipshit fall over the rail into the East River one more time I was gonna scream). No more Kevin Hart barking “NOT A GAME!”

However, shingles doesn’t care has entered the lexicon.

I’m also back to the land of SUNSHINE. I’m not exaggerating when I report that in three weeks in Los Angeles there were two, maybe three, brief afternoon showings of sun. Relentless grey.

It was a good trip, don’t get me wrong.

What do you miss most about home when you travel?

Billy’s hallway in the wee hours

The garden popped in the three weeks I was gone. Whew! Gorgeous. Stepping into the back yard yesterday was the strangest thing because it felt weirdly unfamiliar.

Today there will be weeding. I’ll finish reading the 49-page indictment. Salmon with a dill ginger sauce will be whipped up for dinner (Ali Slagle on NYTimes Cooking app). A dog walk is on the agenda.

News: the man who picked me up at the airport was wearing hearing aids. At last! Long overdue. He’s in the adjustment period but at least it’s now happening. (Nagging reached new heights with this one).

Speaking of nagging, now that I’ll resume my usual Finn-walking loops with the usual number of steps, do you think Apple can stop with the “your steps have changed” notifications?

For place keeping, the following pic.

PS The best thing I read about Aileen Cannon being assigned to the case was a news watcher’s assertion that Jack Smith is a better prosecutor than Cannon is a bad judge.

You’d think she’d want to avoid more blistering rebukes from the 11th Circuit Appeals Court, but I’m not counting on it. But remember: the insurrection case will be brought in D.C.

Me not gardening

10 Replies

Dig up all the yellow invasives, front and side. Pick up catalpa pods. Cut back ornaments grasses to make room for new growth.

Garden many iterations ago

Shop for plants to bring back structure to front bed: iris, peonies, and euphorbia (because there was no ligularia). Don’t bother with shrubs because dryer vent in foundation kills them all.

Rake front bed, half of south bed, dethatch parts of lawn. Pick up catalpa pods.

Pull out dead blades from spider plants. Remove desiccated leftovers from around the hostas. Fill two bird baths — one new one, a pretty copper bowl! Pick up catalpa pods.

Remove dried stalks from sedum — carefully! —remembering the time you got three nasty splinters in your thumb doing just that and that asswipe doctor didn’t believe you and kept asking you if you bite your cuticles.

Scoop up and remove some sunflower hulls. Pick up catalpa pods. Fill the porch planter with pansies, petunias, and allium. Brace yourself to begin removing echinacea from the front bed.

Talk to Scott about chipmunks. Shop for a second umbrella. Unwrap patio furniture.

And now, I’m pooped. Have stock on the stove for butternut ginger soup for dinner. Easy peasy.

I can hardly wait til tomorrow for the new Perry Mason. May go back and watch episodes four and five again. The plot is densely woven (in a good way).

Tuesday. It’s Tuesday.

20 Replies

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.

Maybe I’ll publish those orphans here?