Posted: May 5, 2013 Filed under: blogging, day in the life, friends, home 11 Comments »
Oh, look. It’s me. How’re tricks in these months since we last spoke? Well, since I last spoke and you (all 1 of you) last listened.
Things in Starrhill continue apace: roommates come and go and stay (some good, some less so); the cats sit by the fire or chase each other up trees, depending on the season; the chickens squawk and get neglected (benignly!) and still produce enough eggs for home and to share. Of note: my upstairs bathroom is redone, which improves my quality of life immensely, and I have not acquired any new pets in the past 10 months, which I think is something of a record, but I did just buy a hammock.
But let’s jump to the now, shall we? Because it is, well, here now, like the new agey bumper sticker says. Other, better bloggers abhor lists, but I, well, I love a list. Much like I seem to love the word well. Let’s make it numbered and call it Things I Did This Weekend.
- Went to the market, not for the first time, but for the first time with LB. There were strawberries from my market bf, who always cuts me a deal. Then we had coffee at my house and Bernice availed herself of LB’s lap.
- Took the bus to Woolen Mills to drop off some lard I made from some fat from Red Row Farm and got to sample some goat’s milk and goat’s milk yogurt as well as have coffee and garden time with Elsie. That’s two small farm links in one item, y’all.
- Continued the ongoing dance of dominance with the lawn. One day I will come out on top.
- Took a nap in the hammock.
- Made a fire, because – WTF? – it’s freezing.
- Was accepted, officially, into the Australian Cat Ladies (which is a voice for Values, BTW), even though I am not in Australia. I am so proud! It’s an honor, really.
Still to come!
Have a bonus cat picture:
Ok, and another one:
bummer
Posted: August 11, 2012 Filed under: blah, friends, ivp, the big IF 9 Comments »So, yeah, not pregnant. And now out of embryos. You’d think I’d feel worse.
I mean, I did. I did feel worse. I started to cry on the phone with the nurse. I sat on the couch and cried while alerting the media that this trip was motherfucking over, man. I felt sad and lost and alone (wow, the alone part…. yeesh) and disappointed and weepy and then stuffy from crying and sad and really sad and really, really sad and shocked and a whole host of other things that I can’t come up with names for.
And then I got in bed. To hide, briefly.
And then the troops began to descend. A friend showed up and put me in her car and we got treaty coffees and then walked and took pictures and talked and I said lots of things I was feeling and she said lots of things that were very wise and then we got drenched in a summer storm and the sun came back out in the rain and it was like we were in some tropical-rainforest-paradise made up by a theme park only it was real life, y’all. Real fucking life. Better than you knew, right?
And then I went for fancy cocktails with another friend, and we didn’t talk about my infertility shit at all. By design or no, I have no idea, but it was pretty great.
And then a whole mess of my girls came over, which had been scheduled for a while, so it didn’t feel, thank you baby Jesus, like a pity party, but was really just great. Popcorn and whiskey for everyone! Well, they had wine.
Meanwhile, the internets kept checking in, which really does help. It does, internets. So thanks.
For the moment, I really think I am ok. No idea what happens now and I am certain the sad/alone/lost/etc will come and go according to no schedule at all. But, right now, I think I’m ok.
Now with bonus picture:
an end.
Posted: July 21, 2012 Filed under: friends, history, home, stupidly introspective 1 Comment »There’s a funeral happening today, right now, in fact, down in scottsville and I am on a train headed to dc. I hate to miss a funeral. And while this one if for a man who I really didn’t know well, his passing looms large in my heart, marking the end of an era.
Sidney Tapscott died last week. I can’t claim that he was my friend, but he was a constant presence in my adult life and his absence is marked. Time was, there were fewer people on the downtown mall, and it felt like we all knew each other. I was very young, and more on the fringes of that scene than I probably thought at the time, but it felt like we were the whole world. There was art of all kinds happening and there was always somebody to talk or sit near. Some huge percentage of buildings were empty, but there was no feeling of emptiness. There was just a sense of possibility, which is, I suppose, what youth is.
And there was Sidney, far from young, with his push broom balanced awkwardly in an old grocery cart, sweeping the bricks in front of Miller’s or hitting up somebody at Bizou for ice cream. He’d ask every girl he recognized for a hug and got away with it. He wore sweatbands on his wrists and on his head, and if it was hot, he wouldn’t wear a shirt under his overalls. He kept at least one watch buckled over those sweat bands. His hair stood up crazy all over the place and I often couldn’t understand what he said to me. He was remarkable in that he was an old man in the midst of a group of bright and creative and young people and we saw him and cared about him He was not invisible.
Sidney, may your service today be full of the people you loved. May your wake at Blue Moon be full of music and stories. I am glad beyond words that you had a friend to hold your hand as you died. May we all remember you. Rest in peace.
Links: obit, nailgun, Waldo, the hook, donate.
seems we forgot all about the library like we told my old man now
Posted: October 9, 2011 Filed under: cats, day in the life, family, friends, home 3 Comments »Weekend recap.
Saturday.
- the market, pre-yuppie invasion. Got tiny pumpkins for singing the 5 Little Pumpkin song at school. Did not get any meat. Am sorry now.
- let the kittens outside to play.
- let the chickens out of their yard to be temporarily free range.
- visited with LB.
- coffee out plus tiny grocery shopping at Reid’s with newly re-found gift card!
- helped change spark plugs on dad’s truck. Got to borrow t-bird. Fair trade, yes?
- went to tiny reunion of kids from my summer job/birthday party, which was fab.
- dinner with K and E, which was also fab.
- bed, ah, bed….
- let kittens out again to play. Kittens are SO happy! So! Happy!
- let chickens out again, too. Chickens are SO chickens! Just chickens.
- had coffee and the comics in the sun on the front porch
- admired frolicking kittens
- yard work: moved thyme and oregano to newly weeded bed on the south side of the house; moved wooly thyme from pot to ground in two spots to reclaim it’s ground-cover roots, mowed lawn.
- gamboling kittens!
- laundry: delicates, whites, sheets. All on the line. (I run out of clothes pins before I run out of line space with my new clothesline.)
- moved litterbox to mudroom, freeing downstairs bathroom from lowly “cat bathroom” status and facilitating transition to no motherfucking litterbox. I hope.
- picked up LB in the t-bird and went for a drive. Saw Jim Waive play, drove home. Did not cruise through a hamberger stand, but had fun all the same.
this is a ttc blog, damn it.
Posted: September 20, 2011 Filed under: blogging, family, friends, home, stupidly introspective, the big IF 2 Comments »Lest I forget, in the midst of back to school trials and indefinite breaks, these folks, the Injector and Lesbian Dad, remind me about what is it that I set out to do and why I want to do it.
Three failed FETs this summer. One last ditch effort this fall sometime. Work is kicking my proverbial ass. Hold on to your hats, my friends.
xx
Posted: September 8, 2011 Filed under: family, friends, home 1 Comment »Back in the day, my high school didn’t start until after Labor Day. All the public schools did, but we lucky kids at Tandem got an extra little bit of summer.
That said, I have no idea, really, what the exact first day of school would have been, back in 1991. But it roughly coincides with some day this week.
Which means I have been friends with LB for 20 years.
Yes, that is twenty. Over half my life.
I can’t even think of enough ways to say how glad I am.
sf travelogue, day three
Posted: April 5, 2011 Filed under: friends, travel | Tags: friends, Travel Leave a comment »Strange dream about hosts having Boxer this morning. Then coffee and a biscotti with a book at the coffee shop across the street. Fab.
Well navigated walk to A’s house for a day of visiting, baby napping and amazing ice cream. Small amount of weeping involved. In the visiting, not in the navigating. Also fab.
Equally well navigated walk to a Pilates studio to meet hosts for post-Pilates beer and pizza. Then home for bento lunch making, whiskey and visiting. Again fab.
Off to Palo Alto via caltrain tomorrow.
Why is this trip so short?
sf travelogue, days 1 and 2
Posted: April 3, 2011 Filed under: friends | Tags: friends, Travel 2 Comments »Day One.
Arrived at SFO ten minutes early. Gold start for you, Virgin American. BART was it’s usual easy to navigate self and I fell back in love with SF as I walked south on Mission from the 25th st station.
We went out for afternoon drinks and co-misery and then had a very late Mexican lunch. Oh, food of my people….
Then I self-navigated my way to Noe Valley with no trouble (Gold star, me.) ate and made it back home to the Mission for bed.
Day Two.
Slept in to a rather embarrassing hour. Went out for brunch at the cute place next door. Had a champagne cocktail in the sun and a nap.
Perfect vacation so far.
food/gift craftastic
Posted: December 2, 2010 Filed under: blogging, eco shit, family, food, friends, home 5 Comments »Or, “I don’t need to take the little pips out, do I?”
Oh, come on. You know you’ve missed live blogging with The Food Crafters.
Present: T of Tuesday Fame, Elsie, Cho-girl, LB and me. Here we fucking are. We are making infused vodka and flavored salts. If they turn
9 pm. Maths. Math is hard. LB is cutting citrus for infused vodka and Elsie is commiserating about mL and numbers of limes, slicing and doing maths while the rest of us sit on our collective ass and talk about a new fabric store. Vodka is filtering, so as to see like higher quality, a la SJ.
9:17 pm. Cho-girl begins lavender salt. Smoked paprika is the shit this season, you know. So we’ll be doing that next. And macha which is good on eggs. Vodka still flitering. T of Tuesday Fame is packaging some cleaning shit for us. Terra Scrub if you must know. You must know.
9:25 pm. Pic of sliced citrus as we wait for vodka to filter. Again.
LB said “wait while I hold it against my bosom!” but I didn’t post that one. This is a family blog, after all.
9:35 pm. Lavender salt done. Vodka update: first bottle, 3rd pass through the filter.
Live blogging is hard. I’m passing this shit on.
9:40 pm. Where is the shamwow? Cleaning utensils-salt flavoring change.
9:45 pm. Kermit crab status-mass murder and painting.
T of Tuesday Fame: “did you calculate for the displacement of the citrus?”
SHG: “fuck no.”
9:50 pm. New salt is smoked paprika and moving on to matcha which smells like green tea ice cream.
9:55 pm. Smells like a tea house.
10:00 pm. Four cycles of filtering the vodka is our max. around here, pouring it in with the first citrus mix, grapefruit.
10:05 pm. V-Bottle two, pass one. S-done for now, we will be drying citrus and doing that later.
i don’t have time for you, Mark Bittman
Posted: November 21, 2010 Filed under: blogging, day in the life, food, friends, home, lunch Leave a comment »Or, Sunday To Do:
Oh, fuck it. Let’s make a list.
- laundry the first (Oh, laundry, how do I love you?)
- start sponge for bread (Got late start, so there really is no time for the no-knead stuff – it’s back to my old bread bff, Tassajara. I do love you though, Mark Bittman, I really do.)
- mop the kitchen (Blah. Mopping, I dislike you as much as I love laundry.)
- work self into a snit over current events/sexism/state of the yard.
- eat something (Note to self: recent bad habit of 2 cups of coffee before breakfast = not good.)
- anticipate visit from the kids from the Valley (!)
- mirate very clean stove and oven, don’t think about how long cleaning said stove and oven took, don’t notice spots that will never be really clean because the fucker is at least 60 years old if not 70.
- laundry the second (*sigh* laundry….*sigh*)
- get sidetracked talking to LB
Ok, so the real fun is over on my lunch blog. Really, y’all. If you’re not logging your lunch, you’re missing out. Highlights include serious panda bento boxes, repetitive but delicious beans on toast, food fights between prominent London lawyers and peanut butter crackers stolen from small children. Ok, just kidding on that last one. And the one before that. But really. Go log your lunch.
