I had a grand weekend.

Friday I made lunch for some friends. I made this recipe from the Barefoot Contessa and I would eat this again every day of my life only I want to live longer than a couple more months. It’s heart stoppingly good.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_109047,00.html

I love having Too Tall Tim over because besides being a flamboyantly great dresser he brings me gifts no one else in the world would ever. This week along with a bag of mixed yarns he also brought a black angora sweater, short puffy sleeves, a piece of herringbone suiting fabric and a crocheted wreath complete with crocheted daffodils, daisies, and butterflys. It’s priceless. He goes to rummage sales and spends hours and hours and hours and finds the weirdest most wonderful shit you can imagine.

Saturday Le Dishwasher and I went to our ceramics class. Yeah. I love it! I could be a potter.
I want to build a giant kiln in the back yard.
After class we went to Morro Bay and bought our daughter guitar strings and best of all, I found broccoli rabe at the farmer’s market there! I haven’t been able to find it (or grow it) for months now so I didn’t blink an eye at paying $5 a lb. It went very well with the left over mac and cheese.

Sunday was our day of rest. After we cleaned the whole entire house. The Dishwasher can’t sit unless all the dishes are washed and the floors are polished. Bless his heart. None of it would get done without him. I’d sit in my own filth knitting away and yelling at Lu to stop licking herself.

It was a grand weekend.

Thank you Dishwasher. MOMD.

The beautiful detritus from my studio.

I’ve been playing in my little nest. Cutting, sewing, knitting. Watching the rain. The prettiest thing I have to show for it are these threads on my table.

I want to be there now.

Instead I am here. Listening to the rats in the walls whining like puppies. Don’t ask.

Last night I dreamed that I found Maria hanging from the ceiling. It was cinematic. I didn’t see her face only her little sneakers. I cried so hard and so long that when I woke up my throat hurt. I was a little nervous coming to work today.

The beautiful detritus from my studio.

I’ve been playing in my little nest. Cutting, sewing, knitting. Watching the rain. The prettiest thing I have to show for it are these threads on my table.

I want to be there now.

Instead I am here. Listening to the rats in the walls whining like puppies. Don’t ask.

Last night I dreamed that I found Maria hanging from the ceiling. It was cinematic. I didn’t see her face only her little sneakers. I cried so hard and so long that when I woke up my throat hurt. I was a little nervous coming to work today.

The beautiful detritus from my studio.

I’ve been playing in my little nest. Cutting, sewing, knitting. Watching the rain. The prettiest thing I have to show for it are these threads on my table.

I want to be there now.

Instead I am here. Listening to the rats in the walls whining like puppies. Don’t ask.

Last night I dreamed that I found Maria hanging from the ceiling. It was cinematic. I didn’t see her face only her little sneakers. I cried so hard and so long that when I woke up my throat hurt. I was a little nervous coming to work today.

The buds on our roses refuse to move past this stage. At least on this one. It’s been balled up in this tight little fist for weeks. Of course I was a little surprised to see buds at this time anyway….

We’re enjoying our second big storm of the season. There was one in early January and now this one. It started raining about a week ago? I’ve lost track. It feels like it’s always been raining. Nothing dries out. It feels kind of like Taiwan during the rainy season. We’ve had a couple of freezes but overall very mild temperatures.

The hills are beginning to green up and though everything in the garden looks grand, I’ve not been inclined to spend any time out there. Mostly I’m in the studio looking out at the rain and the Bachelor Buttons, still blooming.

The bananas we planted look pretty dreadful but they’ll come back with the warm weather. I hope.

The freakin’ gophers ate the pineapple sage I planted and have left little mounds of powdered dirt everywhere. We have to call in the big guns in the spring to take care of this problem as it’s hardly worth planting anything otherwise.

I’ve been taking cuttings to root in between downpours. So far the hydrangea and the abutilon have rooted. I’ve got some hardenbergia and some pineapple sage going as well.

This time of year is more for admiring the garden from indoors. I like this rest.

Look at all these babies…….

The moss is growing back between the bricks.

This is what’s in bloom now……

Calendula, Bachelor Buttons, Jupiter’s Beard, (this stuff never stops blooming!), Nandina and fushia.

February 4, 2008

Free to good home, crappy old bike.
You pick up.
Please bring scrapper & paint brush.

Free to good home, crappy old bike.
You pick up.
Please bring scrapper & paint brush.

Free to good home, crappy old bike.
You pick up.
Please bring scrapper & paint brush.

Most people find comfort in the familiar.

Living in a small town you can’t go to the drug store, library, post office, restaurant, or grocery store without running into people you know and see every day and most times you can’t get away with a wave and a smile. In a grocery store with 8 or 9 tiny aisles this also means you can’t duck down the bread aisle and then to the check out unnoticed and even if you were somehow lucky enough to have maneuvered away from someone because they have run into someone else and are busy chatting with them, there is always the check out girl. You’re not avoiding them (unless you pull a runner and that’s not an option either because you are known to all the cops in town too). You know every single one of them. You know about their mother’s knee operation and what’s worse, they know all about you too. They ask after your family members or ask about something they’ve heard about you. I am not one of the many that find this comforting. I’m one of the few who find it more than a little…invasive.

I’d like to go to the store and not know anyone.

My visit to NY a couple of months ago was rejuvenating and relaxing for me for just that reason I think. It was comforting to walk out of my door on 14th street and like slipping into a warm bath, join in the flow of humanity. I’d run down the subway steps, pass through the turnstile and not meet anyones eyes. So much to look at and think about without having to talk to anyone about anything. That’s home to me. That makes me feel more a part of things than running into a neighbor at the grocery store and chatting about the weather or his trip to the doctor. Being forced to be sociable is work for me. Sometimes I enjoy it but I have to be mentally prepared for it and at least have clean clothes and lipstick on.

My comfort in the familiar takes a more finical form. I like my homemade granola and soy milk for breakfast every single day in my black and white bowl along with the Dishwasher’s coffee, which is strong enough to curl all my little hairs. I have to have it. I have to watch All My Children on weekdays. I have to do my Sudoku everyday. Something is off if I don’t see Lu’s face smushed up in her bed every morning. Like some obsessive compulsive person who has to wash their hands fifty times or checks the locks over and over again before going to bed, I need something on my knitting needles to sit and watch All My Children.

Every few years though, a deracination occurs. I’ll stop the granola and soy milk and then it’ll be migas for breakfast every day for the next 5.3 years. I’ll quit watching All My Children and after 3 years when I turn it on again at 1 pm eastern time, 12 pm western all the same actors will still be there, looking younger in a stiff pulled up sort of way, still reciting the same lines with an almost straight face. I’ll quit knitting and take up pottery and fill the house with little doll sculptures.

And that’s how I wound up in this small town in the first place. Some days I wake up and think something and my whole life changes and I settle into whatever the different thing is and there I roost until…. .

Most people find comfort in the familiar.

Living in a small town you can’t go to the drug store, library, post office, restaurant, or grocery store without running into people you know and see every day and most times you can’t get away with a wave and a smile. In a grocery store with 8 or 9 tiny aisles this also means you can’t duck down the bread aisle and then to the check out unnoticed and even if you were somehow lucky enough to have maneuvered away from someone because they have run into someone else and are busy chatting with them, there is always the check out girl. You’re not avoiding them (unless you pull a runner and that’s not an option either because you are known to all the cops in town too). You know every single one of them. You know about their mother’s knee operation and what’s worse, they know all about you too. They ask after your family members or ask about something they’ve heard about you. I am not one of the many that find this comforting. I’m one of the few who find it more than a little…invasive.

I’d like to go to the store and not know anyone.

My visit to NY a couple of months ago was rejuvenating and relaxing for me for just that reason I think. It was comforting to walk out of my door on 14th street and like slipping into a warm bath, join in the flow of humanity. I’d run down the subway steps, pass through the turnstile and not meet anyones eyes. So much to look at and think about without having to talk to anyone about anything. That’s home to me. That makes me feel more a part of things than running into a neighbor at the grocery store and chatting about the weather or his trip to the doctor. Being forced to be sociable is work for me. Sometimes I enjoy it but I have to be mentally prepared for it and at least have clean clothes and lipstick on.

My comfort in the familiar takes a more finical form. I like my homemade granola and soy milk for breakfast every single day in my black and white bowl along with the Dishwasher’s coffee, which is strong enough to curl all my little hairs. I have to have it. I have to watch All My Children on weekdays. I have to do my Sudoku everyday. Something is off if I don’t see Lu’s face smushed up in her bed every morning. Like some obsessive compulsive person who has to wash their hands fifty times or checks the locks over and over again before going to bed, I need something on my knitting needles to sit and watch All My Children.

Every few years though, a deracination occurs. I’ll stop the granola and soy milk and then it’ll be migas for breakfast every day for the next 5.3 years. I’ll quit watching All My Children and after 3 years when I turn it on again at 1 pm eastern time, 12 pm western all the same actors will still be there, looking younger in a stiff pulled up sort of way, still reciting the same lines with an almost straight face. I’ll quit knitting and take up pottery and fill the house with little doll sculptures.

And that’s how I wound up in this small town in the first place. Some days I wake up and think something and my whole life changes and I settle into whatever the different thing is and there I roost until…. .

Most people find comfort in the familiar.

Living in a small town you can’t go to the drug store, library, post office, restaurant, or grocery store without running into people you know and see every day and most times you can’t get away with a wave and a smile. In a grocery store with 8 or 9 tiny aisles this also means you can’t duck down the bread aisle and then to the check out unnoticed and even if you were somehow lucky enough to have maneuvered away from someone because they have run into someone else and are busy chatting with them, there is always the check out girl. You’re not avoiding them (unless you pull a runner and that’s not an option either because you are known to all the cops in town too). You know every single one of them. You know about their mother’s knee operation and what’s worse, they know all about you too. They ask after your family members or ask about something they’ve heard about you. I am not one of the many that find this comforting. I’m one of the few who find it more than a little…invasive.

I’d like to go to the store and not know anyone.

My visit to NY a couple of months ago was rejuvenating and relaxing for me for just that reason I think. It was comforting to walk out of my door on 14th street and like slipping into a warm bath, join in the flow of humanity. I’d run down the subway steps, pass through the turnstile and not meet anyones eyes. So much to look at and think about without having to talk to anyone about anything. That’s home to me. That makes me feel more a part of things than running into a neighbor at the grocery store and chatting about the weather or his trip to the doctor. Being forced to be sociable is work for me. Sometimes I enjoy it but I have to be mentally prepared for it and at least have clean clothes and lipstick on.

My comfort in the familiar takes a more finical form. I like my homemade granola and soy milk for breakfast every single day in my black and white bowl along with the Dishwasher’s coffee, which is strong enough to curl all my little hairs. I have to have it. I have to watch All My Children on weekdays. I have to do my Sudoku everyday. Something is off if I don’t see Lu’s face smushed up in her bed every morning. Like some obsessive compulsive person who has to wash their hands fifty times or checks the locks over and over again before going to bed, I need something on my knitting needles to sit and watch All My Children.

Every few years though, a deracination occurs. I’ll stop the granola and soy milk and then it’ll be migas for breakfast every day for the next 5.3 years. I’ll quit watching All My Children and after 3 years when I turn it on again at 1 pm eastern time, 12 pm western all the same actors will still be there, looking younger in a stiff pulled up sort of way, still reciting the same lines with an almost straight face. I’ll quit knitting and take up pottery and fill the house with little doll sculptures.

And that’s how I wound up in this small town in the first place. Some days I wake up and think something and my whole life changes and I settle into whatever the different thing is and there I roost until…. .

Born within the enso of the world,
the human heart must also
become an enso.

The Dishwasher is gone for a couple days. Off fighting crime again. Whaddya gonna do?
Lu is licking herself incessantly next to me here and Em is watching the X files and doing her homework.

I’ve stuffed myself to popping with my new favorite soup, recipe follows, and several chocolate truffles and a glass of wine. The dishes. O the dishes. Maybe I’ll throw them out. That soup bowl is chipped anyway.

When my book opened up to this page in my cookbook I turned up my nose a little and thought why waste a beautiful butternut squash like that? But I tried it anyway and now I am in love.

Black Bean and Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

1 med butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cut
olive oil, a couple tablespoons
some salt

another couple tablespoons olive oil
1 onion chopped
8 cloves of garlic. really
1 jalapeno but I’ve made it without and it was just as good
1 14oz can of tomatoes
1 14 oz can of black beans
2 potatoes. any kind
32 oz veggie broth in a box
sprinkle of cumin powder
sprinkle of cayenne

toss in olive oil and sprinkle with salt and then roast the squash in 400 degree oven for about 1/2 hour.
Heat olive oil in pot and add garlic and onion saute until caramelized, about 20 minutes. Don’t burn the garlic. Add the tomatoes and cook for about 5 minutes. Add the beans, potatoes, broth and seasonings and simmer about 20 minutes or so. Add the squash and adjust seasonings.
Serve with avocado, sour cream, cilantro or green onions.
Yum.

Born within the enso of the world,
the human heart must also
become an enso.

The Dishwasher is gone for a couple days. Off fighting crime again. Whaddya gonna do?
Lu is licking herself incessantly next to me here and Em is watching the X files and doing her homework.

I’ve stuffed myself to popping with my new favorite soup, recipe follows, and several chocolate truffles and a glass of wine. The dishes. O the dishes. Maybe I’ll throw them out. That soup bowl is chipped anyway.

When my book opened up to this page in my cookbook I turned up my nose a little and thought why waste a beautiful butternut squash like that? But I tried it anyway and now I am in love.

Black Bean and Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

1 med butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cut
olive oil, a couple tablespoons
some salt

another couple tablespoons olive oil
1 onion chopped
8 cloves of garlic. really
1 jalapeno but I’ve made it without and it was just as good
1 14oz can of tomatoes
1 14 oz can of black beans
2 potatoes. any kind
32 oz veggie broth in a box
sprinkle of cumin powder
sprinkle of cayenne

toss in olive oil and sprinkle with salt and then roast the squash in 400 degree oven for about 1/2 hour.
Heat olive oil in pot and add garlic and onion saute until caramelized, about 20 minutes. Don’t burn the garlic. Add the tomatoes and cook for about 5 minutes. Add the beans, potatoes, broth and seasonings and simmer about 20 minutes or so. Add the squash and adjust seasonings.
Serve with avocado, sour cream, cilantro or green onions.
Yum.

Born within the enso of the world,
the human heart must also
become an enso.

The Dishwasher is gone for a couple days. Off fighting crime again. Whaddya gonna do?
Lu is licking herself incessantly next to me here and Em is watching the X files and doing her homework.

I’ve stuffed myself to popping with my new favorite soup, recipe follows, and several chocolate truffles and a glass of wine. The dishes. O the dishes. Maybe I’ll throw them out. That soup bowl is chipped anyway.

When my book opened up to this page in my cookbook I turned up my nose a little and thought why waste a beautiful butternut squash like that? But I tried it anyway and now I am in love.

Black Bean and Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

1 med butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cut
olive oil, a couple tablespoons
some salt

another couple tablespoons olive oil
1 onion chopped
8 cloves of garlic. really
1 jalapeno but I’ve made it without and it was just as good
1 14oz can of tomatoes
1 14 oz can of black beans
2 potatoes. any kind
32 oz veggie broth in a box
sprinkle of cumin powder
sprinkle of cayenne

toss in olive oil and sprinkle with salt and then roast the squash in 400 degree oven for about 1/2 hour.
Heat olive oil in pot and add garlic and onion saute until caramelized, about 20 minutes. Don’t burn the garlic. Add the tomatoes and cook for about 5 minutes. Add the beans, potatoes, broth and seasonings and simmer about 20 minutes or so. Add the squash and adjust seasonings.
Serve with avocado, sour cream, cilantro or green onions.
Yum.

Live for the moment, because there is only one result in life.