Thanks for the fish

You thought I was all talk, but I’m not. I’m buying my Mini! Something snapped in me this week. Maybe it was the fact that my Subaru was feeling funny (fixed now, $500 later), or the fact that I’ve filled that gas guzzler up twice in one week (but it’s a great car..it really is). Or the fact that we dont’ have a backup or even any car that’s fuel efficient (thank you again honda civic), or the fact that my boss is constantly asking me when I’m going to buy my mini. Or the fact that I’m feeling lame and uncool. Or the fact that I save and save and then worry about becoming a miser like my sister or my Aunt O. Or the fact that I’m 35 and apparently going through a mid-life crisis.

Whatever the reason, I’ve made the mental decision that I’m gonna get one. Color undecided. I’m going to go and test drive sometime this week and then figure out my finances options. J is giving me a lecture about vices, telling me that for someone who is deathly afraid of death that I don’t take good health very seriously. Now he’s telling me that he won’t be my personal trainer if I keep smoking. Oy vey. Why did I marry this puritan?

Anyway, we got quite the loot from the CSA tonight. I made a veggie fried rice with swiss chard, garlic scapes, salad turnips, broccoli, and tofu. We also got kale, more radishes, lettuce, more lettuce, more salad turnips. Now I need to figure out what to do with it all. So far, we haven’t really wasted any. It’s all good stuff.

What else? Work is going better. I’m busy and my friend’s D’s brother is freelancing with us. He’s really nice (and cute). I miss D but I change is good. It’s giving me a chance to take more ownership and figure stuff out. I’m trying to make new friends too, but most people I just like very much.

Miracle of miracles it’s not raining this very second. It has rained today and it still looks like it will. No sun. No blue sky. But at least it’s dry for the moment. My garden is an absolute disaster…covered in weeds.

July is shaping up to be busy. I have a shotgun lesson on the 4th, latin dancing every Saturday, a Red Sox game, a play (dirty rotten scoundrels), a ladies night with girls at work. I hope the sun comes out soon. Then, as always, it will be a perfect Maine summer. And I can drive around looking hot in my cool new mini.

if nothing else. There was a time when summer meant slimming down. No more meat and potatoes… fresh strawberries, lettuce, cukes, tomatoes. Well that’s still what it means, sans the slimming down. But fuck it. I don’t care anymore. We’re galloping through nature’s abundance and I refuse to think about calories.

Our CSA has delivered us broccoli raab. I’m going to make  brocolli rabe and cannelini beans on garlic toasts . It’s also delivered us mesclun mix, lettuce mix, radishes, green onions (though they call them scallions). Also, spinach, which we already ate. I admit it’s a challenge to eat all this food, but it’s a challenge I’m up for!

Unfortunately, we also have lettuce in the garden getting very big and tall. I eat wraps, I eat salads, I stuff as much lettuce into my body as I can, and still, there is more leftover. But abundance is a good thing, which I will not complain about.

It’s raining here and I’m glad. The garden needs it. The corn has sprouted sporadically. I need to go and throw more seeds at it. Tomatoes are flowering. Squash is looking good. J’s dad planted onions and potatoes…more than they’ll need so I’m sure I’ll get some extras. : ) I just freaking LOVE summertime in Maine. It’s manic manic  manic overabundanceness! My flowers are exploding. The weeds are exploding even more. I have big mulching plans. I have big writing plans, I have big reading plans, I have big basement-finishing plans. But mostly I have big dinner plans:

Parmesan baked haddock
The above mentioned broccoli rabe recipe
rosemary bread
wine
salad!

We went kayaking yesterday with J’s friend R. It was fun. Beautiful, perfect day! R talks a lot. A LOT. But he’s pretty easy to get along with. Self-aware, self-effacing, flakily just himself. Me and J… we’re pretty quiet. I can jabber on a bit when I have a drink or two in me (like now), but mostly we like to float along in silence. But it was nice. We went out to “our island.” I got a bit of a sunburn. It was a much needed respite after my shitty week of being sick and stressed and overwhelmed at work. Today it rained. So even though I planned on getting my 2 new raised beds up, I had to sit around and read, agonize about my book, and drink red wine. We went out shopping, to get father’s day presents and b-day presents for my friend D. People were universally irritating me. I have pms and am in a mood and I hate, hate, hate people. Women over 20 wearing pigtails and camo pants, kids, kids, kids, parents, parents, parents, adults, adults, adults. No matter what they were doing, they were getting on my nerves. I’m juding people based on class (whether richer than me or poorer than me) and finding every excuse imaginable to not like people.

Then I got home and relaxed. J bought lots of books at borders and I realized I am blessed to be married to a wonderful, curious, intelligent man who thinks talking on a cell phone during a kayak trip is in bad taste!

Oh! So I had my piano recital Total disaster! I completely forgot a song I have worked on for over a year! I started it 3 times, then finally got up and said “Can I grab my music?” in front of 200+ people. Granted the other performers were for the most part 8 years old. Still, I felt like the mother hen and that I should at least set a good example. But afterwards an older man, who I assume was a father came up to me and said “Thank you for being here. It’s good for the children to see an adult doing this.” I was the only adult in the recital and it made me think, yes. It’s good for the kids to see that you can do something and not be perfect at it. We’re all not great at performances. Life is a continuous learning. So yes, my failure is there gain! But it was still slightly depressing! Oh well!

Mrs. Robin is nesting on her eggs. I saw a bald eagle at my house! Flying by my window. Then yesterday kayaking TONS of bald eagle sightings. sigh…

Enough random thoughts… time to tend to my homemade yogurt, my haddock, and my broccoli raab.

but my house in summer makes it all ok.

Let’s start with hormonal. Despite my declaration that I wouldnt’ care about anything anymore or be upset by anything (or perhaps in spite of it), I’m weepier than ever. It’s ridiculous! I don’t even have pms. I want nothing more than to be a calm, cool, and collected chick. To just accept the ways of the universe and move on with life. But now that I’ve made that my goal, everything makes me cry! I wept the other night for a really stupid reason (embarassing!). Then I saw a duck crossing the highway with her chicks and nearly sobbed again. There’s roadkill everywhere. My cat might be sick (making a strange “meow”?) and I just can’t seem to handle it. Despite being for the most part happy and manic, I have these periodic moments of extreme sadness and dread. Nightmares too. And a bit of hypochondria. Probably just my usual craziness. : )

And now for stressed out. It’s stupid to be stressed out when I really don’t have much to do at work. But the things I do have to do are overwhelming me. My boss is essentially…mmm….what’s another word for useless? He basically whines that his staff members are not entertaining him enough. “I’m bored!” whaa!. You’re a manager dude. Manage something and shut the eff up. Trying to be compassionate and failing miserably.

And now for happiness. Picked up my first batch of CSA vegetables. Can you say FUN? Love it! We drove down the road to the farm - less than 1/2 mile - talked to friendly farmer Ben, measured out tons of produce that is already paid for, so felt like it was free (that was really fun). We got radishes, arugula, meslcun mix, lettuce, spinach, green onions, 2 mint leaves, 2 seed potatoes…. guess that’s it. : ) Happy girl! Love food!

I’m trying to get drunk off the remainder of 3 bottles of wine, but need to stay sober enough to some planting and watering. I bought some herbs - an oregano, some basil, and a rosemary. I also ordered 2 more raised bed kits. My original plan was to do a pretty herb garden, but then I got overwhelmed and cancelled that plan. My new plan is to do utilitarian herbs in a raised bed. Good enough for this year. That way I can grow tons of basil and freeze pints upon pints of pesto for the winter.

Book is going good. Still “worried” about a layoff so trying to get this thing written so I can start the long process of getting rejected by publishers. Fun!!

Well, gardening calls.

cleaning crew tonight at 4:30 as I was leaving to go to my piano lesson. I saw both the husband and wife and they were both very stand-offish, as if to say “I don’t need/want your help!” fine! Don’t we all just want someone to save? Or someone to save us? Either way would be ok.

I made a cranberry and wild rice soup tonight. yum. I’m trying to get back on track with my weight loss. 2 weeks in a row I’ve gained weight, though not much. But my WW leader is very unforgiving. I want to lose 10 pounds in 10 weeks, which is totally doable, but perhaps not when you have 2 martinis and 2 bowls of soup for dinner.

I had an ok day at work, but was very agitated on the way home. It’s weird when nothing emotionally weird has happened and you’re upset. I attribute it to: a diet coke (which I have cut WAY back on), a bag of bugles, and 3 cigarettes (doh!). It’s such a slippery slope.

Well, I’ve still been setting my alarm clock for 5 am. J gets up and then yells up at 5:30 “Breakfast is ready!” and then I have to get out of bed because oatmeal gets wicked gross and clumpy if you let it sit. So I got up, ate my oatmeal, got back in bed and worked on my book for 20 minutes or so. I think I’ll do more now though I am buzzing and am not sure how productive I will be.

in Maine and spring in Maine:

Winter - have shitty day at work, come home, get drunk, go to bed.

Spring - have shitty day at work, have glass of wine, do million things that need to be done that you actually enjoy, go for walk, go to bed forgetting why day at work was so shitty.

It’s 6:39 pm. I’ve had a giant delicious salad, a few glasses of wine, and a filet of haddock for dinner. The sun will not go down for 1 more hour so I have 20 minutes to get the window screens out of the shed and bring them inside, water my raised bed, window boxes, and seedlings in the basement, get my tennies on and go for a half hour walk. Then, put the screens in, write the “working outline” for Act 1 of my novel, and do some writing. I should practice piano for my June recital but I already accept the fact that that will not happen.

Things are popping in the garden. I have daffodils everywhere. Weeds are coming up…lots of things are coming up! I’ve nixed my patio and the herb garden for this year (my two big projects). I want to finish edging all my beds with inlaid bricks. I want to rip out my whipped on rhodos and my dying holly. I want my front beds to start looking good. So  yet again, I abandon the patio and decide to go for the “maintenance” route one more year. I know eventually my garden will look fabulous and take care of itself. It’s just not quite there yet.. But damn it makes me happy anyway.

Work fucking blows and that’s all I’ll say about that.

17 minutes left to finish my glass of wine and do items listed above. Chug, chug, chug!

me $60. Soo… we had a party on New Year’s eve, which involved buying things like chips and salsa, 2 liter bottles of soda (which we never buy), sour cream, margarita mix, etc. etc. In addition to that, we got some food stuffs for Xmas like jams and ham and pancake mix. Plus, we were stockpiling frozen food for awhile there, not just stuff we grew and picked over the summer but meats too. The beginning of the winter brings out the hoarder in me. Anyway, to make a long story short, the amount of food sitting in this house is stressing me out. I love to hoard, but at some point I get afraid that all the food will go to waste. So I just start eating. I have serious issues with food. I was obviously descended from someone who was in charge of the family’s food.

Sooooo…. J and his dad were down in the basement this morning, putting up walls and making us a room down there, which we will eventually finish. It’s looking really good by the way. So I decide to clean out the pantry and the lazy susan. We have so much damn food it’s ridiculous. All the things I pick up in the grocery store with no plan at all. Like 2 boxes of tempura mix that I’ve had for about 2 years. And a box of taco shells I’ve had for at least as long. So, despite the fact that I would like to start eating healhtier, I cannot stare at these boxes any longer. So I take them out, put them on the counter and make a grocery list of things I can do. It’s Maine shrimp season so tempura shrimp sounds good, eh? I tell J my plan, and as the resident house keeper he was not impressed. Frying foods makes too much of a mess. I got $500 for Xmas from my parents, so I decided that cleanliness was not a good enough reason to stimy my culinary plans. So I went to Target and bought a deep fat fryer. oh! pork chops are ready. Another thing out of the freezer! Yay!

It’s cooooolllllld out there! I know it’s mid November, but this seems excessive. I got my parka out, along with my hat and gloves.According to my LL Bean weather station, it is currently 23.2 degrees outside. Nothing much going on here, so I’ll just recap my day:

Thursday night I got about an hour of sleep, so I had some catching up to do. So last night I got my bed preheating early and got in before 9. Then I slept gloriously until after 10 am this morning. I heard J get up at 6:30 and promptly fell back asleep, practically guilt free (but not entirely). One thing I’ve realized about msyelf lately is that I really don’t like conflict and I have an enormous amount of guilt. I’m working on that.

Then I had breakfast (an apple) followed immediately be lunch (it was 11 by then), which was leftover squash soup with a piece of bacon. I noticed a few of the small buttercup squashes were starting to rot. : ( Bummer… I hate to see good food go to waste. Especially good food that i put my blood, sweat, and tears into. Well, it least my sweat anyway.

Then we went to Sears to get some snow tires for the Scoobaru. Never had them before, but I’ve been sockign money into savings since I’ve gone all frugal.I got the Micheline X-Ice, which consumer report says are the best and evey guy at Sears has apparently bought for their wife (did they all get teh same script?) and their wives say the car drives like a tank. Sounds good. I haven’t had any big problems with the scooby…it’s spun out on me a few times, but it’s all wheel drive and has handled fairly well. Most of the problem for me is visibility and not knowing where the damn road is when it’s covered in snow. But I thought… why not invest a littel in my safety and peace of mind this winter? We’re carpooling a lot anyway so I can make J drive…and then we’ll both be safe. He’s been sweeter lately and a little more chivalrous, which is weird. He went into Sears adn took care of everything even though it’s my car. That’s very unusual, but I hate doing car stuff, so I really appreciated that.

Then we went to TJ Maxx just to look around. I just got paid yesterday and have $158 to last me for the next 2 weeks. It’s my own fault though because I put $715 in savings and then I bought a Diane Von Furstenberg dress for my Xmas party. It’s blue and a wrap dress and J says it’s very “70s.” I think he meant that as a bad thing, but I think it’s awesome. Here’s a link. And it was on sale. And I paid off all my credit card bills and darnit, if a girl can’t buy a sexy damn dress eveyr now and then, then this life is just not worth living! (too dramatic? I was channeling Scarlet O’Hara there)… http://www.dvf.com/dvf/browse/productDetailWithPicker.jsp?productId=D7098001G8&categoryId=cat60004 (in the blue trellis pattern)
Ooh la la, right?

Anyway, so I looked around TJ Maxx and realized why I don’t go window shopping more often…because then I realize all the things I could use. They have really nice stuff there and please dont’ judge me for saying so. It’s true! Stuff from all over the world, like for instance, German nutcrackers. nice! I could totally use one of those Adn then I looked for appropriate presents for my 2 year old nephew. I don’t know what the hell kids like, but I had fun looking. And then I remembered that I wanted to buy him a Redskins outfit. I also looked for things for my in-laws. But I’ve gotten my own family free books from bookmooch.com and some photographs, so I don’t want to spend more on the in-laws. Then we looked at bath and body works and I put on some lotion called “sensual” something to see if it turned J on. He did unzip my pants as we were making dinner, but still no action. : (

Anyway… then we went to Borders, where I ran into A, who is the girlfriend of F, who is one of J’s good friends. For a short time, I used to go to the gym wiht her and I like her. She invited us out/over tonight but F is working late, so now we are trying to stay up long enough to have a social life. Shouldn’t be so hard when you sleep till 10, but hey, I need a lot of sleep. I didn’t buy anything at Borders (of course, because I have a will of steel), but J bought Joseph Campbell’s “Primitive Mythology” that I already have, but whatever. I try to encourage him to like all the things that I love, and he’s come around to many of them…buddhism and Joseph Campbell being the major ones. In fact, he professes on a daily basis “Joseph campbell is a genius!” and I jsut say “yes, I know.”

Then…the gym. I’ve worked out 3 times this week, but twice on teh stair machine for 30 minutes. Hadn’t gotten a good run in so I thought I was due. It sucked though and was super boring. I did 20 minutes of very slow jogging, watching every second pass by, then walked a bit and managed to eak out 7 more minutes of jogging. Finally threw in the towell. I’ve lost no weight (in fact, I think I’ve gained some) since this “hard core” (accroding to my standards) exercising began, but what I’m really concerned about is setting a pattern for teh future. Getting in the habit of working out. And for the most part I like it. We went in Brunswick today and that’s a smaller gym. In Portland, there’s much better people watching so the time goes by faster.

Then we went grocery shopping, made dinner, took care of the in-laws cat and now I”m trying to warm up by drinking my Constant Comment. I turned the thermostat up to 65 which is super hot for us, but it’s so cold out there… I need to splurge. We have enough food in our freezer to last a nuclear holocaust, providing the power doesn’t go out.

Ok, so after 3 and 4 attempts at making cheese, I have succeeded! On Sunday, J wanted to take some pictures in a town near us, so we went tootling around (maybe I’ve already mentioned this). My idea of tootling, is running into the grocery store and doing my week’s worth of shopping in the 10 minutes I have to spare before my piano lesson next door. But there is a natural foods store in that town that i have been meaning to check out. So, we are on foot. We are tootling. We are passing the nautral foods store and there is no excuse NOT to go in. so we go in. Now I’ve been going through this bread-making fantasy in my head lately. For some reason, all of my fantasies either involve sexy guys or making/storing (ok, occasionally eating) food. I envisioned these giant barrels of local flour… you know, potato, rye, wheat, white, etc. etc. that I could buy by the pound to make bread. I don’t know where I got that image from, but that didnt’ happen. Though they do have red lentils in bulk. Good to know for when I start making my red lentil stew this winter. Sometimes the red lentils are hard to find. But anything, what I did find was unpasteurized milk. Now I know what you’re thinking..pasteurization was invented FOR A REASON. The problem is that these days milk isnt’ just pasteurized, but it’s ULTRA pasteurized, which means it could survive a nuclear war. You can not make cheese out of nuke-resistant milk. That is a fact. I’ve tried this at least 3 times with local milk, organic local milk, etc. and it’s never turned otu right. But when I stumbled on the unpasteurized milk, I thought..hmmm… I could make cheese out of this AND kill myself with microbes in one fell swoop. Sweet.

But the plot thickens. I get a call (or email, I forget which) from my dad (or mom, I forget which) saying they came across a goat farm that sold goat milk. Then they asked me to call them back with detailed instructions about when I would be home, etc. etc. etc. which of course I did not do because I am a horrible daughter and never call them back, ever. Soooo… after purchasing the raw milk over teh weekend and planning to make deadly cheese sometime in the future, I get home from a very very stressful day at work to find an Igloo Cooler on my porch with a gallon of fresh goats milk (and some goat cheese too). Awww.. am I the luckiest girl in the world or what? not only can I be a total bitch to my lovely husband when I have PMS (sorry sweety!) but I have just the best doggone parents in the world. So freaking sweet! So I spent the entire night making (yes! Making!) cheese! and succeeding! I feel a little nauseous now but hell I’ve got enough mozzarella to survive a nuclear holocaust.

I know.. you are wondering about all the nucelar holocaust references, right? it’s Jericho. That TV show. I love it. J used to get on my nerves when he would say 6 times a day “Let’s watch an episode!” and I woudl say “no! we have to preserve it. We need to save it for a special occasion…like once a day. You freaking addict!” but now, he says that and I’m like “aww yeah, bring it on brother.”

Well my fingers are burnt from cheese making (it’s kind of dirty and gross and in the future I will think twice about where I get my cheese from as there is a lot of hand to hand combat involved) but it was fun. Also J read some article that he has not yet forwarded to me about how peopel are depressed because they aren’t doing any of these survival things themselves (like making food and stuff I guess). I really want to read this article because you know I am really into evolution and dna and stuff. I totally believe I am a product of evolution and that’s why I want to have sex with various cute italians and really get a kick out of growing, preserving, and storing food. Plus I also dig hanging my laundry out to dry. This was what was missing from my life when I lived in Greater Metropolitan Washington DC. Let’s face it girls, we are gatherers. We are made for this! Go get some berries! Speaking of which, I just planted 3 raspberry plants and 3 blueberry plants in my yard. Amen. That’s all there is. There isn’t any more.

homemade cheese… has resulted in yet another failure. Why is this not working? Is the milk I’m buying really ultrapasteurized, when it says “pasteurized?” Am I doing something else wrong? Usually at the point where the curd doesn’t get solid, I dump it in the sink and curse at it. This time, I’m dedicated to salvaging something…anything… so I got the muslin out and poured the half formed curd into it. Now it’s hanging from a know on my ktichen cabinet and I’m eating this shit no matter what!

This has been a productive weekend, for sure, but now I’m tired and can’t believe that it’s Sunday night. I have absolutely no desire..not the littlest inkling.. to go to work tomorrow. I spent most of the weekend concocting a wardrobe scheme so I wouldn’t have to think about what to wear every day, then ironing everything and organizing it all. I’m pretty happy with it, but since my latest attempt at quitting smoking I’ve gained a few more pounds, which means nothing looks good on me anyway. I should have run today but J has been workign 24/7 and it was raining, and to go running alone in the rain was really too much for me.

We went apple picking on Saturday so now have 40 pounds of apples that I now have to do something with. : ) Why do I do this to myself? I guess because I know that soon enough there will be no fresh food to be had  so I might as well make the most of it. We actually went picking in the rain, and we were by no means the only ones. I also organized the gardening bench in the basement, did all the laundry and oh many other things. My parents came to visit today and my dad finished fixing my downstairs bathroom lights and mirror…now I just have to sand it down, repaint a few patches, and clean up! It looks great. And my mom helped me sew some sweaters and tried to fix my sewing machine, but no luck. It’s really nice having them so close.

I can’t bear to watch the redskins game. For once it’s on TV but I just can’t handle the stress. So I sit here with my old fashioned cocktail looking at the list of things that I did NOT do this weekend and realizing that weekends are way too damn short and there is way too much to do. And writing always gets pushed to the very bottom of my list. Yes, trying to make cheese comes above what I claim is my lifelong duty. OH well….

Heating option update. I sat down Saturday to figure out what to do about heating this winter. It’s not as dire as I thought. Last year we went through approx. 500 gallons of heating oil and spent about $1500. This year, using the same amount, we’ll spent about $1750, if the price stays what it is now. Last year, we were cold though. We kept the thermostat to 60 during the day and 65 for the evening, back down to 60 or so for the night. We supplemented with a propane fireplace in the living room, a space heater in the office, and lots and lots o blankets.

This year, we’ve decided to get a small wood pellet stove for the office. Hopefully the heat will work its way upstairs to the bedroom. The stove will be about $1200, the pellets $1000, but I think the pellets will last more than one winter. WE really may not save any money by going this route, but I’ll feel better knowing that we’re not 100% relying on heating oil. If another hurricane hits Texas and oil doubles, then at least we have options. So I feel good about that. Now we just need to buy one, figure out how to install it, and get Home Depot to deliver the pellets we ordered 2 months ago.

Well… summer is officially over and my summer reading challenge is still going on. I have half a book left, but I”m pleased to report that I have read 9.5 books this summer! I think that’s pretty impressive. Well, it’s only 6:42 but it’s dark and I feel like the night is over. I should do my weight lifting, some writing, maybe make and can some applesauce. But I think I’ll try to tackle book #10 and stay awake till J gets home…if he ever gets home.

that it looks like I’m spending an inordinate amount of time blogging lately, and this would be true, but my theory is that blogging is writing, so at least I’m getting some writing practice in, right? My other blog is a challenge because people I know might acutally read it, and therefore I feel like I have to make it look like my life is interesting and that I have no problems. Which of course is total bullshit. But in the grand scheme of things, life is good. Let’s see if I can think of 5 good things:

1) Went shooting this morning with my piano teacher. It was fun, but even cooler than shooting guns was having someone to do it with. I’m not a social butterfly. I have work friends and email friends and the occasional friend here and there to see when I’m visiting a certain place. But doing stuff on the weekends with someone other than my husband or my in-laws, or work people (in a group) is highly unusual. So that was cool.

2) Ballroom dancing. We had our first lesson this afternoon and whoo-ee it was FUN! J is generally pretty quiet and stoic, but in the right setting he really can loosen up and we had a boatload of fun. Besides, I think I wasn’t half bad. Unfortunately we have to miss next week so I hope we don’t get lost and behind.

3) Gorgeous fall days like today with fields of wildflowers in bloom and small town festivals (even if I don’t go to them) and just generally loving where I am right now.

4) Gaziliioons of green tomatoes to cook with. Green tomatoes? yeah… I was afraid of a frost and basically wanted to get the garden dismantled so I picked them all. I do love a challenge in the kitchen. I’m making Fried Green Tomatoes Parmesan…basically eggplant parmesan but with friend green tomoates. It’ll be ready in 10 minutes so I’ll let you know!

5) My health. Ok, I’m still suffering from some unknown uncomfortable condition in my private parts, but I have faith that it’s nothing serious, or at least nothing that will kill me. I’ll eventually figure it out, and probably the worst thing that can happen is that I’ll become infrertile. And let’s face it, I probably wasn’t having kids anyway. Though I do have the occasional panic attack at 3 am when I’m convinced I have ovarian cancer. Guess I’ll call my doctor AGAIN on Monday and try to get in.