I’ll show you mine

Slightly hi-brow Korean ramen with partial-fail kimchi. Store-bought kefir. Now show me yours.

 

heh

Lunch: fish tacos. And you?

 

easy as pie

Except for the typing.

This blogging app puts lunch logging right at my fingertips. Or tip as this tiny, tiny keyboard makes my hunt and peck style even more – ah – stylish.

In other, Starrhill news, it’s raining (again) and the chickens seem to take great joy in standing in the mud outside of their coop; the gf is out of town for 2 whole weeks and I’m all at loose ends; the mean girl cat has a nasty, nasty wound abover her left eye that I get to pry open twice a day for pus release. Mmmmm…..

Anyway. Lunch. Last night’s fish cakes, made from the previous night’s trout and potatoes plus some onions, an egg and breadcrumbs. Also leftover collards. A girl needs her well done greens.

Log your lunch, please.

 

huh

Well look at this. There seems to be a free blogging app. I am inordinately proud of having only free apps. And, no, I don’t have a phone. Calm down.

Today I ate fancy canned tuna from LB with capers and arugula. Your lunch, please.

(there seems to be no spell check – eep)

 

come on now, won’t you come back home

Or, How To Throw A Funeral In 10 Easy Steps.

1. Find a dead Some One.  Try to find a dead Some One You Love, as this leads to having the funeral land in the laps of some other folks you love, as well as partially in your lap.  This may be painful.  This may, in fact, be really shitty.  Whatever.  There’s a lot of business around death.  Somebody’s got to deal.
2. Handle the red tape.  What, you thought there was just a pine box and some ashes to ashes shit?  Nope.  Ha ha on you!  From inter-state shipping to archaic, homophobic bullshit, you – or some one you love – will have to deal with regulations that turn no ear to love.  Remember: somebody’s got to deal.
3. Remember shit.  When you’re in the thick of it, remember shit.  Those stories about __________________?  And the ____________?  Fill in the blank.  Those motherfuckers are priceless.
4. Call in the troops.  You’ll want a nice bottle of George Dickle. Or some carry-out bagels and fresh coffee. And somebody’s got to go get them and bring them to you.  So pick up the phone.  May you count your friends as your family and your family as your friends and may they all come riding up when you put out the call. You’ll remind yourself that your Dearly Departed was good at this sort of thing.
5. Call in the troops again.  This one is the All Call. It’s death, y’all. People will come.  They’ll show up in dark suits.  They’ll bring food.  They’ll make the Bible palatable to atheists.  They’ll drive you and yours around and listen to history they have no interest in, while seeming interested.  They’ll call you for no reason.  They’ll laugh at inappropriate shit and you’ll be glad.  You call; they’ll come.
6. Bear Pall.  Really, do we have to say anything else?  Just do it.  Folks have carried your weight before and will again.  Return the favor and be proud you were asked along for the ride.
7. Food.  The living like to eat, and you know your Dearly Departed did, too.  So plan your After Party accordingly.  Did your Dearly Departed love oysters?  Have some. (Be sure to find some poor soul who knows how to shuck them.)  Or maybe the favored food of The Deceased was any sort of dessert?  Then make a cake.  Or three.  Don’t let the dog eat the cake.
8. Drinks.  Have them.  Toast en masse and in small groups.  Drinks win at funerals.  Circling with a wine bottle makes you look like good host and allows you to check in with lots of guests.  Yes, this is yet *another* lesson from your Beloved Deceased.
9. Good lord, do not forget the pictures.  The old ones you dig out of the box at the top of the closet and then ones that about a million people are taking right now.  You’ll be glad to have them. Or, at least you’ll be glad to have some of them.
10. Keep talking.  Those folks you love, the living and the dead, are around so long as you keep talking about them.  Heaven or no heaven, they’re still here.  Call your friends your family and your family your friends and keep them all close by.

 

one is sliver and the other gold

New and new-t0-me blogs:

• Old-time IVP, but somehow I just never got over to see her blog.  Stupid me, this one is smart.
• Old-time friend, new-time blogger.  Amazing pictures.  Cali, I have this idea you’ll love this one.

Check it out.  And by it, I mean them.

And lunch.  Sunday was brunch in Adams Morgan at Mondu, which does a fabulous Korean brunch.  Monday, sushi back in Central Va, because the gf is reading Garlic and Saphires and wanted soba, which they didn’t have.  Tuesday was back to my current summer lunch special:  cut up tomatoes with fancy salt and rice wine vinegar, potatoes boiled until the skins split with butter and fancy salt and string beans with chile.  All local, all the time.  Except the salt.  Log your lunch, please.

 

i can’t get this image to show up, or why am i so stupid about this shit

Here, have a link instead:  what it’s like here these days.

My internet comes and goes at will.  Now, I’m all for freedom, but please, internet, at least stick to your curfew and be home after dark.

Other things:

• I heart colons.  The punctuation kind, although I am also grateful for the services provided by the one I carry with me all the time.
• The heat has broken, thank you baby Jesus.
• I had  dream while I took my nap this afternoon that the gf came back early from her (stupid) camping trip and snuck (sneaked?) up behind me and I knew it was her by how her hands felt in mine and the smell of her neck.  Then the dream got sort of weird, but when has anyone ever talked about a dream *not* being weird?
• On account of some staffing shake-ups at my school, I am sort of running tomorrow night’s parent meeting (yes, the one you’ll remember from last year where I did absolutly nothing.).  HA!  Hahahaha.  This ought to be good.
• Yes, school is starting.  I almost embrace it.  In large part because I have not one but two returning students and I’ll make them take care of everything.  CHO-girl and I will sit back and chillax.  They’ll be 3 soon!  They’ll be fine!
• Sometimes I wish I had the wearwithall to go fix all the inconsistancies in my blog.  Sometimes.
• I’m off to the Valley to have bolgogi with The Cutest Family of the Valley.
• Perseids  tomorrow.
• I also heart StarDate.

Lunch:  leftover boxed mac and cheese with sabzi my best roommate made last night, with an afternoon snack of coffee (!) and bread and butter with jam from my mama.

 

92º

Ha.  I think it’s hotter than that, but what do I know?

I broke down yesterday and bought tomatoes at the city market.  My farm share hasn’t had any yet – the result of a wet and relatively cool summer? – and, well, I fell hard for the very pretty ones LB’s farmer was selling.  I just couldn’t wait any longer.  And so, today’s lunch:

Tomato salad (one very large, very delicous tomato, snipped up basil, tiny diced red onion, pretty pink and minerally salt) and the last bits of some fancy hard cheese.

And now for my nap.  Long your lunch, y’all.

 

lunches

Just to keep up the momentum:

Tuesday – rather bland minestrone made by the teenage roommate – I dressed it up with chard and Bragg’s.

Wednesday – chips and chile (you say salsa, I say chile) and then some Korean brand ramen with egg when the gf came home for lunch.

Log your lunch, please.

 

and you are….?

Do we even know each other? It’s been so long….

Just kidding.  I know you’ve been bouncing in your collective seats, biting your collective nails, wondering wtf is happening in Starrhill.  There’s nothing so exciting as the news from here.

In no particular order:

1. nothing – for real, nothing.  It’s summer and that’s how we roll around here.  I’ve been taking care of various children to pay the bills and sitting on the porch with drinks and generally doing nothing.
2. small skunk sighting – not a baby and not an adult, but cute.  Also surprising enough to make me jump.  And cute enough to make me think of Pepe Le Pew and worry for my little girl kitten, who does look a good bit like the little black cat Pepe’s always after.
3. vacation – woo and hoo!  I haven’t had a real vacation in years.  Years, I tell you.  The gf and I went up north, stopping at her folks’ in LI and then on to Western Mass for a wedding (as a side note, the officiant made a very low-key and lovely comment at the start of the ceremony about how marrige is a right and that we hope soon it will be in everyone’s reach – warmed my little gay heart), which is totally at the top of my weddings-attended list.  Then post fab-wedding weekend (yes, it was a whole weekend, yes it was *fab*) we went back to LI/NYC.  There was beach time, there was boat time, there was city time.  We ate more Korean food than you can shake a stick at.  The gf’s mama gave me a skirt.  And some beach glass.  I got to see the gf drive a boat and yes,it was a hot as you might thing.  I slept late and got tan.
4. I haz an air conditioner in my bedroom. Some people are more, shall we say “sensitive” to the heat.  Oh, the things you do for love.
5. not pregnant – again.  And then again!  *sigh* And, yes, this has been the blight of my summer.  If I had gotten knocked up, or if I were not ttc, this summer could be labeled as One Of The Best Times Of My Life.  But no.  TTC fucks everything up.  Don’t let me discourage you, though.
6. RE visits – see above.  RE visits with company, and by company I mean the gf.  Yes, Clem, I’ve changed her name, just for you.  I’ll remind y’all again that my RE is the best RE:  full of science and stories and willing to explain any and everything he does *and* immediately and totally inclusive of the gf – asides to be sure she understood terms like ICSI and full eye-contact and hand shakes and generally just being great.  Keep in mind accompanying me on RE visits holds no additional meaning for us.  So don’t jump to any conclusions – yes, I’m talking to you.  And you.  And, yes, you, too.  Good lord, y’all.
7. drugs – not recreational ones.  Just my old friend Femara.  You might remember that The Pregnancy That Wasn’t occurred sans meds and so I opted to continue trying without them once I got back on the horse January last.  Oh dreams of un-assisted conception, how far and hard you fall.  Anyway, yeah, I’ve given up on that shit.  Western medicine.  Bring it.
8. the peeps – um, well, ah…. things have changed with the peeps.  They are big now, as you might guess.  I almost don’t recognize them in those pictures from a few months ago.  So, ah, the other thing is that both those peeps turned out to be roosters.  Ha.  One of them started crowing and getting rather aggressive and so I passed him on to a friend in the country.  He eventually got eaten by a dog but he had a good run at country life for a few weeks before that.  Before his passing, but after his exile from Starrhill, I bought 3 more peeps off of Craigslist.  All girls.  They are blue laced Wyandottes we like to call Mary, Kate and Ashley.  And, yes, you counted right.  There is still one of the Original Peeps here in Starrhill.  We like to call him Lola.  I would end up with genderqueer chickens.
9. IVP visit – Woo and Hoo!  We squeezed in a visit with Jude and her fab and adorable fam.  They are fab and, yes, I pretty much love Northhampton, like the good lesbian I am.
10. June visit with my cousin – woo!  She’s big now.  It was like a real adult visit.  I heart her.
11. the gf – yes, I know some of you are stalking me just because of her legs.  I see you over there, hoping for another picture of her in shorts.  Sad to say, my camera is broken.  Anyway, it’s pretty damn good these days, y’all.  Blissful and lovely for here, please.
12. work – what work? (Ok, I am looking forward to it just a little bit, as cho-girl is coming to teach with me again.)
13. fermenting – so far I’ve got pickles and sauerkraut and radishes under my belt.  Some are more successful than others.  Also plum jam from plums the gf and my roommate scavenged from the tree by the school.  I’m sure there will be more putting up in the next weeks as I try to hang on to whatever summer I can.

It’s time for a nap after lunch (leftover fritta with leeks and zucchini from the farm, maybe some peaches).  Log your lunch.  I’ve missed you.