boom roasted

I have successfully thwarted the Universe's attempt to make me huddle in a corner out of fear and defeat. Apparently, the Universe didn't get the memo that NOBODY PUTS BABY IN THE CORNER. The memo came via a cheesy 80s dance movie so that might be why the Universe missed it.

Anyway, despite an extraordinarily stressful weekend and being very tired on top of it, life is surprisingly in order at the moment. I feel like saying "BOOM ROASTED" after every accomplishment, as in "YOU THINK YOU CAN TAKE ME DOWN UNIVERSE? BRING IT. I WILL GIVE YOU A WEDGIE AND STEAL YOUR LUNCH MONEY AND TIE YOU TO THE FLAG POLE."

The stress came in the form of a catastrophic web server failure sometime Friday, which meant The Hallway, Writer's Cramp, and all my clients' sites were down. Not only did I get everything restored LIKE A BOSS, I still managed to finish the design work for my clients' platform upgrades that I had originally planned to finish Friday, complete the rollout schedule for said upgrade, send out monthly traffic analysis to clients on schedule, and complete and send invoices. BOOM ROASTED.

Not content with website kung-fu, we still managed to stay caught up on or catch up on the various household chores on our to-do list for Saturday: dishes done, laundry folded and put away, downstairs vacuumed, GROCERIES BOUGHT, dinner made. BOOM ROASTED.

And it wasn't even all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy at our house this weekend. We fit in our first game of Pandemic since we bought it, caught up on all of our shows, fit in a day of writing and art, and read several chapters of a new book. BOOM ROASTED.

All of this despite losing an hour of time, and in fact, we got to bed at a reasonable hour TWO nights in a row, like real grownups! Also like real grownups: clothes laid out and bento packed, ready for Monday. Even the browning bananas that were at risk of going to waste got turned into delicious bread, just in time for both tonight and tomorrow when I'll be having a couple of neighbors over for tea. BOOM ROASTED.

Got anything else to throw at me, Universe?

lunch, matryoshka:

• chicken lo mein (chicken, carrots, onions, green onions, bean sprouts, celery, noodles, secret sauce)
• peas
• Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Bento: Pinova apple

luckily, our idiocy wasn't fatal

Great news, everyone! Sal and I are no longer going to die in a tragic house fire! WE ARE NOW LEGIT RESPONSIBLE GROWN UPS YOU GUYS.

Our new state of non-dumbassitude is thanks to Sal, who spent some time Saturday and Sunday installing the nine(!) smoke detectors that have been sitting in a bag in our basement since before Christmas last year. You might not know it from the epic procrastination evidenced in such a fact, but I am extremely anxious about housefires, and particularly, a fire in my house. And given that we live in a very old house with wiring that marks every evolution of domestic electricity* since the early 20th century, I am understandably paranoid about our house erupting in a big ball of flame. NOT PARANOID ENOUGH TO ACTUALLY INSTALL SMOKE DETECTORS IN A TIMELY MANNER OR ANYTHING. Just paranoid enough to worry about it incessantly.

*Trufax: If we ever win the lottery, the first thing I'm doing is having the house totally rewired, top to bottom. Which will be difficult, since I don't actually play the lottery, but that is my plan for what to do with a big wad of cash. Well, and it may not be the first thing, because I would probably take a trip to Europe and then buy a bit of land on the coast to build my yurt, and then what would likely happen would be that while we were busy doing these other fun things first, our house actually would burn down from a fire started by the old wiring that we finally had the money to have replaced and that is what we would call irony.

We did have a couple of detectors that were already in the house when we moved in: one in the kitchen, one in the little landing area between the bedrooms, bathroom, and dining room. But then the one in the kitchen kept going off whenever we so much as breathed in its vicinity thanks to not having a vent system for the stove so we took that one down with vague promises to ourselves that we'd do something about it soon and then never did. And the one in the little hallway area -- which is probably the least helpful place for one, since it's basically so protected that the house will be a smoking ruin before any smoke would get to it to detect -- weremoved when we started redoing the guest room and library (the hallway connects them) so we could paint the ceiling and we, um, never got around to putting it back. BECAUSE WE ARE TOTES RESPONSIBLE LIKE THAT.

So now we have detectors on all three levels and in almost every room of the house. We even have two that have 10 year batteries! Because when we do finally stop being morons, we do that shit right.

lunch, pink natural lunch:

• spicy meatsa balls
• steamed broccoli
• carrots
• Pink Lady apple slices
• raw pumpkin seeds

st. johns appreciation post

our little market square hosts the St. Johns Farmers' Market until mid-OctoberSeriously, our neighborhood is the greatest. Sometimes I wonder how we got to be so lucky to live here.

We looked at 42 houses before we found The One, and we were looking long and hard at the neighborhood for each, not just the house. Which is to say, we did our legwork, no question. But there was a sizeable amount of luck and faith and hope, involved, too. Driving through the little downtown area of St. Johns then was deceptive -- many storefronts were empty and what was there wasn't promising. The houses ranged from well-kept to rundown. It was the Charlie Brown Christmas tree of Portland.

But there was promise there. The downtown had a community feel despite the vacancies, and it was clear that many people had lived here a long time, and were proud of it. There was a police station and a fire house right there by the bridge, and a post office just a block past that, and a terrific library with original woodwork and stately old fixtures. There were wonderful parks and some great little shops and places to eat (granted, just a few). And then there was the house, and the bridge, and that view.

Saturday, after a trek out to Forest Grove for a vintage crafts fair (that turned out to be less "crafts" and more "stuff"), we stopped in our little downtown to check out a few of the newest shops we hadn't made it to yet. Barrel, a new wine and beer shop, was opening, so of course we had to be there for that. Right next door was Etcetera, a wonderful little home decor shop that will give me another place for gift shopping along with the already fabulous Salty Teacup. And right around the corner (past Grammy and Nonna's Toys, where we're always able to find something just right for the Fabulous Miss M), we had a chance to stop in at Olive and Vine for the first time since they opened. Salts and tea and olive oil and vinegars and spices, oh my.

Both of us now laden with shopping bags in each hand, we didn't dare cross the street to St. John's Booksellers, since we can never get out of that place without at least one book apiece (and our tottering to-read pile is already borderline hazardous). We had our options of Thai Cottage for dinner, or Anna Banana's, or James John Cafe, or Girasole, or John Street Cafe, or Signal Station Pizza, or could have bought ingredients to make it ourselves at Proper Eats Market. Afterward, we could've caught the latest release at the St. Johns Cinema (for less than one of of those big movie houses, and the option for pizza and beer to boot!), or a summer release for half the price at St. Johns Pub. Cakes and cookies from Tulip Pastry, cat food and litter from Tres Bone, bikes and supplies from Weir Cyclery, photography-anything from Blue Moon Camera, clothes for Sal at The Man's Shop...all of these and more are just blocks from our house in our neighborhood's little downtown.

From haircuts to freshly roasted coffee beans, our neighborhood has it all, and as we headed home, I had to pinch myself yet again at how lucky we are to live here.

lunch, Ms. Bento:

• roasted butternut squash soup
• broccoli and hard boiled egg
• carrots and celery (with the leaves left on)
• Starkcrimson pear with cashews as gap fillers

breakfast/snack, cute animals sidecar:

• Starkcrimson pear
• kiwi
• walnuts

the continuing douchebaggery of douchebag developer

So Douchebag Developer is back and making me hate him.

Two weeks ago (while my dad was here, actually), we returned from an afternoon outing to find "No Parking" signs blocking both sides of the street on our block. The signs were placed there on behalf of Douchebag Developer's project, which requires sewer improvements before work can begin. In 12 pt. font that's oh-so-easy to read when you're IN A CAR AND AT LEAST FIVE FEET AWAY FROM THE SIGN, the signs further informed us that the street would be blocked from October 12th to October 27th, Monday through Saturday, 7 AM to 6 PM to allow work on the pipes under the street.

You'll remember that we have no off-street parking at Hall House.

The first night, we parked the cars just past the end of the block. Someone broke into the Camry and stole the ashtray (which we use for change). We don't leave anything in the car so there wasn't much to steal -- they sifted through the few CDs in the console but didn't take any and rifled through the papers in the glovebox, but that was about it. They didn't even take the car kit we keep in the trunk. I could swear that I locked the car -- I'm obsessive about such things -- but since none of the windows were broken and there was no sign of tampering, I can only surmise that I left it unlocked.

Now, I realize that I'm partly to blame, and that Douchebag Developer isn't responsible for the criminal acts of other people. Our neighborhood is actually very safe and close knit, but transients sometimes migrate through on their way from the railroad tracks at the bottom of the hill up to St. Johns. They're harmless, and you know, whatever few dollars of change was in that ashtray is worth far more to them than it is to me, whether it was used for a fix or for food. In the scheme of things, it's hardly worth mentioning.

But I know that it happened because our cars were parked out of sight of our house and the streetlight that they normally sit under. And for that, I do blame Douchebag Developer. (We've been parking our cars down the corner since then, since that street gets more frequent traffic and is more exposed, as well as being right in line with the neighbor's security light.) And I wonder what we're in for when this cursed development is finally finished and suddenly there are a bunch of cars parking on the street -- cars that will each have their own garages, but thanks to Douchebag Developer's douchebaggily planned development, are almost impossible to actually park in.

And there's the usual inconvenience you'd expect with such work: jackhammering and big chunks of asphalt dropping into gigantic metal tractor buckets at SEVEN O'FUCKING CLOCK IN THE A.M.; dust everywhere, and the smell of diesel, and pipes stacked on our nicely landscaped sidewalk strips; loud equipment and pounding that makes the whole house vibrate all damn day. Hauling groceries is a challenge already when you have to haul them up the seventy gajillion stairs from the street to the front door, but add having to park down the block to the whole expedition and suddenly the prospect of saltines and some grapes for dinner seems much more appetizing than having to get groceries.

But, you know, this stuff happens, and streets and sewers need work, and a couple of weeks of inconvenience aren't that big of a deal, my self-indulgent pissing and moaning aside.

Until yesterday.

Yesterday -- the day before all of this was supposed to end -- there was a flyer on our doorstep that new sewer work (sanitary sewer work, as opposed to to the storm sewer work that was apparently being done this last two weeks) commences today with the same restrictions, but will continue until "approximately" November 18th.

And that was the moment when my loathing for Douchebag Developer sharpened to a surgical precision.

lunch, Paris slimline:

• smoked sausages
• peas and carrots, corn
• molded egg
• dark chocolate-covered raisins
• Starkcrimson pear slices
• yogurt-covered raisins

it's a beautiful day in the neighborhood

We seriously live in the best neighborhood in the universe.

Just got back a little while ago from the neighborhood emergency planning meeting (also the monthly neighborhood potluck). Neighbors got together at the main gathering spot on our street* this evening for a presentation from a local emergency preparedness expert (also a neighbor). His presentation was all about why it's practical to be prepared, but he also gave us tremendous information about easy measures we can take and available resources we can use. (Tip: a lot of the materials we received tonight, which really are super informative, were apparently made available via Homeland Security funding. Which means it's likely that a lot of other communities have similiar departments and resources to offer.)

*[Two of our neighbors have built a wonderful community space on the lower part of their property. On the far end, there's a fire pit with earthen seats all the way around, and an astounding view of the bridge, river, and Forest Park. There's a covered stage for neighborhood concerts (we have lots of talented musicians) and lots of room either for seating or dancing or both. And there's an ingenious outdoor kitchen that makes hosting the neighborhood potlucks easy, but also makes it possible to have monthly "classes", where everyone learns the fine arts of food preparation and preservation. Pickling, fermenting, brewing, canning...Sal's even on deck to teach everyone how to make rustic breads.]

The idea isn't to be scared or paranoid, but to make smart, reasonable preparations for all kinds of emergencies. Not just the big stuff, like earthquakes, but also more frequent, less catastrophic things like extended power outages. Practical ideas, like stocking an emergency kit for home and car, learning how to turn off utilities to prevent gas leaks and fires, and alternative communications when cell phones and computers (or electricity, period) aren't working. (Tip: cell phones will almost always go down in an emergency to leave the lines open for emergency personnel communications, but texting will usually still be available. The City of Portland has a really cool site at www.publicalerts.org where you can put in your info and be notified via the method of your choice if there's an emergency in your area.)

Our neighborhood plans for this to be the first in a series. The first goal is for each of our households to do the things we need to prepare. Once we've started working on that, our next goal will be how our neighborhood can be a self-sufficient community in the event of emergency or disaster. Building an "asset map" (what skills and resources are available in our neighborhood, which is useful even when there's not an emergency); designating responsibilities (people to go around to each house to make sure gas valves are turned off, for example, in the event of an earthquake to prevent secondary fires, or people who will check on elderly or disabled neighbors); basic first-aid and triage education (so we can start caring for each other in the event emergency personnel are too overwhelmed or unable to reach us right away); central meeting places (to do head counts and situation reassessment, and for allocating resources).

After that, we'll be moving on to expanding the idea further into our community, so other neighborhoods in the area can do what we're doing and provide support to each other in times of need. Because (as I learned tonight) there are 300 police officers and 160 firefighters and 22 ambulance crews for the entire city of Portland, a population of 500,000 people. In the event of a city- or region-wide emergency, they'll be doing the heroic work, but the very best thing _we_ can do for ourselves and for them is to take care of each other. (The presentation materials we received tonight advised that we should plan to be on our own for the first 72 hours, so to have plans in place that could take care of everything through that time, if not longer.)

I just love our neighborhood so much! We are a community of progressives and activists and naturalists and urban farmers and dreamers and artists and craftspeople and teachers. We are rich in talents and skills and knowledge and education and passion. We all love our little corner of the world, and we are building a village together.

summer begins to have the look, peruser of enchanting book

Fall is definitely here. It's my favorite season, all bright, crisp days and cool, clear nights. Or gray and rainy like it was this weekend. I love everything about it, from the smell and feel of the air to the turning leaves to the heavy sweaters and abundance of produce and craving for hearty comfort foods. And, joy of joys, Honeycrisp apples!

We were fortunate to not have a whole lot on the docket at Hall House, which meant that I could spend most of the day curled up in the library with a new book, and fall asleep in my chair for an impromptu afternoon nap. It also meant time to get laundry done without it feeling like a chore (folding while watching movies), and to stay on top of the dishes (always a challenge without a dishwasher), and to write for a good long stretch of time while Sal helped a friend harvest their hops (and coming home with a nice bounty as a result). It was the best sort of weekend, a combination of productive and leisurely, cozy and restful and restorative.

With such weather that makes a person crave hearty comfort foods, it's little wonder that Sunday night dinner would be something thick and creamy and served with crusty artisan bread and likely to put a person to sleep after two overflowing bowls full. Which we totally didn't have. We also totally didn't follow that with a slice of opera cake and a dollop of malted chocolate ice cream. We're all about moderation here at Hall House.

breakfast, cute animals sidecar:

• oatmeal with raisins and maple syrup
• Honeycrisp apple slices

lunch, Ms. Bento:

• potato soup (potatoes, spaetzle, corn, celery, dill)
• peas and carrots
• Honeycrisp apple half
• opera cake

title taken from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickenson, "Part Five: The Single Hound, LXV"

a charm from the sky seems to hallow us there

Today and yesterday are big anniversaries in our lives. Today marks 21 years since Sal and I first started dating, which...is still boggling to me every time I think about it. How is that even possible? Holy crap. We've been together for well over half our lives. Incomprehensible! It's like trying to wrap your head around the concept of super massive black holes or chaos theory or why Justin Bieber is popular.

And yesterday marked our 9 year house-iversary! Happy House-iversary, Hall House! How far you've come and how much you've changed. You were in need of more help than we initially realized, but you've been a bigger reward than we ever could've imagined. (Except for that whole water line incident. Let's not do that again, kay?) Thank you for being a castle and a sanctuary and a house of dreams.

breakfast, bento color mini green:

• mini frittatas -- mushroom, onion, spinach
• mini blueberry pancakes
• raspberries

lunch, Lunchbot Duo:

• 4-color raddiatore (tomato, carrot, spinach, regular) tossed with a bit of oil, herbs, and salt
• asparagus sauteed with mushrooms and caramelized onions
• red garnet yam patties*
• pepperoni -- the last from our visit to Dick's Brewing
• corn
• raspberries

*This is a new invention. Although someone probably thought of it long before I did.  So new to me, I guess. Anyway, I had some leftover roasted yams from last week so I mashed them up and mixed them with a little maple syrup, them put them in a lightly oiled pan (to keep them from sticking) on high heat. The result? To die for.

title taken from John Howard Payne's "Home, Sweet Home"

t-minus two days and counting

Vacation begins in two days and it's a race to the finish whether or not Sal and I will drop dead from exhaustion before it gets here. But after this weekend, I like our odds. We worked our tails off but somehow managed a smidgen of R&R in there so we're refreshed for this final stretch. And yesterday was a particularly lovely day. While we both worked (more on that in a minute), we had the radio tuned to the local station that switches to a holiday music format for December and had such a pleasant day together, laughing and singing along. In just a couple of days, we'll have nineteen days of time like that.

My company holiday party was Friday afternoon, and although I couldn't afford the lost time for what I need to get done before I'm gone, it was a welcome respite and loads of fun. Probably the best holiday party we've had in all the time I've been there. We've sure had some doozies so that's saying something. Oh, and I won a $50 Home Depot gift card. Which is kind of funny, since the $100 Home Depot gift card I won at the company picnic bought all those smoke/fire detectors last weekend.

The party finished an hour earlier than scheduled and rather than be the workaholic I'm sometimes accused of being by going back to my office to finish up some things while there were no interruptions, I instead decided to hit Collage finally, after Kim told me about it when we met for coffee last week. I really almost wish she hadn't, because the last thing I (or my bank account!) needed was another terrific art store on my list and within my immediate area. Well of course I spent a ridiculous amount of time there and came out with a ridiculously overstuffed bag of goodies, but what can you do, right?

The dark clouds were just starting to release the flood as I was headed up the stairs to my front door. We've had some real toadstranglers of late, so it was another in a recent spate of them. I had things around the house to be done, but the perfect weather for being curled up on the couch combined with a week of late nights, I ended up falling asleep watching a movie and I blame the rain. Cue Milli Vanili.

We spent the weekend working on the creative room, getting the painting done and most of the furniture together. Woohoo!! We'll finish up the furniture and putting the room together on Wednesday, then decorate and put things away in the room on Thursday, and by Friday, we should be able to use it. Arty crafty days, here we come!

lunch, blue bunny & moons:

• hazelnut crusted chicken breast
• jasmine rice with sweet & sour sauce
• Honeycrisp apple, celery sticks
• satsumas

The weather's been positively biblical all weekend. Rain measured in inches, records broken, that kind of thing. AND freakishly warm. Like, high 50s, low 60s. We had to open the windows to air out the house a bit last night -- Sal baked an apple pie (OMG SO MUCH LOVE) and something from a previous meal started smoking in the oven -- and ended up leaving the windows open most of the evening, it was that warm. Torrential rains and unseasonable temps? That kind of wildly erratic weather doesn't bode well. Because, in the words of the venerable Lewis Black, "I know what comes next...

...locusts."

from a distance, we look like paragons of efficiency

Smaug and Hobbes, being their usual productive selves, which is to say IN ABSOLUTELY NO WAY WHATSOEVERProductive weekend, I'm happy to report. Which is a relief because I feel like there's a countdown clock hanging just over my shoulder -- as previously mentioned, I'm taking off the second half of December to coincide with Sal's winter break from school but there is much to be done in the next week and a half. Nonetheless, I feel like a kid looking forward to Christmas, or perhaps the way I did in college: excited to have a breather from the stress and homework and tests, but a shitload of difficult finals to get through first.

It started off on the right foot: not with work, but with fun. Friday, I met up with my friend Kim for coffee (well, hot chocolate, actually) and we spent a few hours catching up and trading info on cool creative things, tools, and new places to spend way more money than we should shop for all the things that make an artist's heart go pitter pat. So it's thanks to her that I was feeling energized enough to focus on website updates when I got home.

So I've completed a few more updates on the guest room and library projects from a few years ago. We're getting into the exciting stuff now, like neato decorative window films and painting the walls at last:

Library, Part 4: Fixing the Window & Wall

Guest & Creative Room, Part 4: Fixing the Windows & Ceiling

Guest & Creative Room, Part 5: Painting the Room

Note that the text is not the same for these posts, nor will they be from here on out.

I hope to have the painting in the library posted tonight; that was a far more dramatic change. It was fun to look through the pictures for these phases of the projects and remember all the little snags and interruptions we had to overcome, but to look at them knowing about the end result and how much we love the outcome. Or to relive the sense of accomplishment when we'd successfully completed a particularly challenging part (wall patch ftw!). One of the reasons I've been documenting all our home improvement (mis)adventures is to be able to go back and see how far we've come and to remember what it took to get to this point. As I've gone back through these pictures to get caught up on these two projects, but with a few years' distance, I'm reminded of all the hard work that went into them and each time I go into those rooms now, I have a renewed sense of pride in them. Also, how thankful I am that we got rid of that heinous pink.

Saturday, we got the paint for the creative room and I did the preliminary work on the aforementioned sooper sekrit project in preparation for (probably) painting this coming weekend. Sal had to do the transfer to secondary fermentation of his latest batch of beer (brewed last weekend). He also fixed the dripping faucets in the kitchen and bathroom, the broken handle on the toilet, and put in much-easier-to-use faucet handles in the utility sink in the basement. His trip to Home Depot for the hardware also included the purchase of nine(!) smoke/fire detectors and two carbon monoxide detectors so that we don't literally die in a fire. So yay, no house-induced death for us!

AND! We spent Saturday evening going through several boxes of papers and mementos that had accumulated in the eave closets, the product of needing to clean in a hurry -- for company, more often than not -- and throwing stuff we didn't have time for into a box "to go through later". Well "later" came Saturday night since I had to drag out some mementos boxes anyway to put away the things from the guest room that had been on display and stored in my old desk. We're not done, but we put a respectable dent in it.

Despite our weekend of industry (or perhaps because of it), the house looks like a wreck, but I should have time this weekend to instill some order. Nothing too catastrophic, thankfully. I do have to wrap up my website clients for the month (statistics analysis, final report, and invoicing), and I expect I'll be working some late nights right up until vacation starts in order to get the end-of-year programming done on the billing program, but at this point, I'm not in freakout mode. The fact that I'm still thinking I can fit in housework in the evenings indicates that I'm in not-yet-overwhelmed-but-possibly-a-tad-optimistic mode. Don't try this at home, kids.

And just to round out the list of accomplishments for the weekend, I got a breakfast AND lunch packed for today. I've been away from bento for a couple of weeks and I'm feeling it. There was the week of the holiday, of course, and I worked from home in the days leading up to it so no bento. Last week was occupied by visits from Corporate (the COO on Tuesday and one of the members of the Corporate IT Team at another division on Thursday) so I either was too busy in preparation to even get a drink of water (Monday) or joining them for lunch (Tuesday and Thursday). So again, no bento.

It's a testament to how little I go out for lunch, how infrequently I eat at chain restaurants, and how accustomed I am to my bentos that I didn't feel well at all last week. The restaurants were decent as chain restaurants go, but nothing about the meal felt good. Way too much food (I ended up leaving most of it on the plate, unfortunately, and I absolutely hate waste), much too heavy (even though I ordered a salad!), and the fruit and veggies didn't have as much flavor as I'm used to. Yes, I fear the worst has happened: I've become a food snob. :) I think in the future when I inevitably have to go for these Corporate lunches, I'll plan to pack a bento anyway to eat before/after and just order a small side of something for lunch.

Anyway, it's a relief to be back to a bento schedule. As I was packing today's, I initially felt a little rusty, like I was getting back on a bike after being away for awhile. Once I was done, I felt the familiar sense of comfort and assurance that I have something to eat tomorrow that I know will be good for me, that won't make me feel like chugging a bottle of Pepto afterward, and that gives me enough energy to get through the day. I know I go on and on about the wonders of bento and the difference it's made to my well-being, but I just can't overstate it enough.

breakfast, cute animals sidecar:

• satsuma mandarin
• red grapes
• plain yogurt with a dollop of marionberry preserves

lunch, deli club:

• chicken that Sal made for dinner Sunday -- he tucked slices of lemon under the skin and roasted it
• roasted potates (olive oil, salt, pepper)
• kiwi slices and red grapes
• satsuma mandarin and the last of the dark chocolate covered raisins

Oh how I love the satsumas. Sal came home from the grocery store Saturday night bearing an entire box of them for me. I'll probably give myself a rash of canker sores from eating as many as I possibly can while they're in season, but it'll be worth it.

each of us was created for it

No breakfast today so I was extra grateful to have such a pleasing and yummy lunch waiting for me.

lunch, blue bunny & moons:

• hazelnut-crusted chicken breast
• jasmine rice with peas, carrot flowers for garnish
• Cortland apple with carrot pieces as gap fillers
• walnuts and dark chocolate covered raisins

the view from the library to the back yard, through the back porch

I'm so in love with our home I can hardly contain myself some days. There's still a lot to be done, but we've reached a point where we can enjoy it as it is, even with the bathroom in its semi-demolished state and the kitchen looking like something right out of Good Housekeeping circa 1966. And in the fall, my favorite season, in my favorite city, it's like falling in love every day, this house. I took a few random pictures to remind me of that.

spider web on the front porch, with Sal's Japanese maple in the backgroundIt was another whirlwind of activity at Hall House this weekend, so it was nice to have the steadying comfort of home throughout. Saturday was another OCI graduation, which meant Chef Salvatore gave another graduation speech. He gives the same one each time so he's had time to refine it, but he changes it every time, too, so he stays fresh and funny when he gives it. I've decided I'm going to video it next time.

a close-up of the crape myrtle I posted about last weekThe ceremony takes place in the morning and then there's a reception for the students and family afterward, so it takes most of the day. Things finished up just in time for the arrival of our Smiley family, who were coming to spend the night. We had a roast and veggies going in the crockpot all day to keep dinner easy, they arrived bearing a loaf of sourdough and a pan full of chocolate chip bar cookies. This is the reason our family is awesome. Well, one of the many, anyway.

We spent some time with the Fabulous Miss M before her bedtime, then had a late dinner catching up with Sister and Guy. (Late, at least in part, because Miss M insisted there was a ghost in the guest room. We promised her it was friendly.)

Sal and the Fabulous Miss M watching a movie on the inflatable bedThey had come for a race in town they wanted to go to and we would watch Miss M while they were gone. It meant an early start Sunday, but Miss M and I snuggled under the blankets while we watched Finding Nemo and that's not such a bad way to start the day. The three of us played and colored and had a tea party and ate breakfast, and next thing we knew Sister and Guy were back and it was time to say goodbye. But it was okay...we have Thanksgiving to look forward to next month, and Christmas after that, and I'm sure some get togethers in between.

just looking at them makes you want to take a nap, doesn't it?After they left, Sunday was a lazy day to recharge before the week starts up. We spent the day on creative stuff and naps and not being as productive as we ought to be and taking ten million more pictures of the cats because we needed still more of those.

view from the front porchBut mostly, we spent the day watching all the ways the light turns Hall House into an illustration from a storybook and thinking there's magic in the world if you know where to look for it.

the corner of my desk (yes, the decoupaged table), which happened to be lighted very prettily; it's part of a map of the Oregon Coast, with an arrow pointed to Oceanside; the full Maya Angelou quote is here

it takes a village

Today was our neighborhood block party. There was lots of food and a bouncy house for the kids, and a makeshift stage for neighborhood musicians, chalk for the kids to draw to their hearts' content and a plant exchange and a map for us to mark neighborhood assets for trade and barter, or neighborhood activities: "Mike and Michelle -- garden with veggies for trade, flowers to share", "Ivy and C -- chicken coop, eggs to barter, cob structure sauna", "Mona -- textiles, music", "Paul and Pete -- carpentry and woodworking, foreign language lessons". Like that.

click to see more picturesBut the main event was the "intersection repair": painting the intersection down the street with a big compass rose design created by a collaboration of neighbors. There were buckets of recycled paint in nine colors and a chalked out design on the street. Everyone brought a brush and spent this gloriously beautiful day painting the hell out of the intersection. Mother Nature herself was completely on board, because she called a temporary stop to the weeks of rain that've put a damper on even the hardiest Pacific Northwesterner's spirits and even intermittently shut down the annual Rose Festival. Until late afternoon yesterday, no one was sure if this long-planned street painting project was going to happen.

But happen it did. With kids running about and a band rocking out in the background. And the end result? Pretty damn awesome.

We stuck around for a bit, but decided to skip out on the evening BBQ even though we'd spent the earlier part of the day making potato salad and cookies for the occasion. We love our neighborhood to itty bitty bohemian pieces, but it was a lot of people, and we already don't get a lot of time together as it is. Plus, with the first nice weather we've had in weeks, our little backyard sanctuary was calling to us.

We were sitting there watching the goings on after the painting was finished, just soaking up the moment and the lovely weather, and Sally said, "Sooo...do you still want to stick around for the potluck?" I grinned. "Do you?" "Not really." I had to hug him at that moment, because that's what you do when someone reads your mind and understands everything without you having to say anything. "Me neither."

So Sally threw a few skewers on the grill and I drizzled some fresh asparagus with a bit of oil and sea salt and pepper, then set the little table on our back porch. While we waited for the coals to get going, we did some trimming of the roses in the back corner and walked around the yard and marveled at how much it's changed in the 8 years we've been here.

Then we kicked back on the porch and talked while we took our time enjoying our dinner -- spicy marinated pork and Thai peanut chicken skewers, my famous dill and vinegar potato salad, and grilled asparagus -- the new star-shaped curtain lights for lighting and the local jazz station on low volume for atmosphere.

Not a bad day. Not a bad day at all.

i vote for three day weekends every week

How was everyone's weekend? Did you get to do something fun and relaxing?

Ours was nice -- a good combination of fun, productive, and relaxing. We spent Saturday and Sunday in the yard working on our To Do List to get it ready to enjoy for the summer. We didn't get everything on our list done, but we accomplished a lot:

• weeded the back bed and cleared out of the last of the spring bulb plants that have died back, which were beginning to choke out some of the other stuff trying to poke up through all that decaying vegetation; we've gotten so much rain that everything was slimy and squishy...yuck!
• Sal trimmed the apple tree, including a lot of trimming and shaping of the under-canopy
• raked the patio and the areas under the apple and Japanese maple trees
• Sal trimmed the rosebushes in the front; I trimmed and re-directed the canes of the climbing rose in the back -- we're going to need at least one more trellis on the back fence this year because that bad boy is going completely bananas
• Sal trimmed the lilacs, part of a 3 year plan to get them whipped into shape after several years of not tending to them like we should've
• back porch cleaned, swept, and mopped, including the screens all the way around and everything set up so we can now sit out there and walk around in our bare feet without turning the bottoms of our feet black
• yard decorations (wind chimes, lanterns, etc.) unpacked and set out
• install my new star-shaped curtain lights from IKEA (that I bought six months ago and completely forgot about until I unpacked the yard stuff)

And all of that despite the gray days and wet weather. Actually, it was pretty great working-in-the-yard weather Saturday and Sunday -- not too hot or cold, didn't really rain, and it was gray (not just overcast) so we didn't have to worry about sunscreen, with some nice sunbreaks here and there. However, despite wearing two thin, long-sleeved shirts, pants, gardening gloves, and work boots, I still managed to get bitten all to hell by mosquitoes. I have about a dozen quarter-sized welts on my legs that are going to drive me mad for days.

Left to do:

• plant the salvia that mom gave Sal for his birthday
• plant my annuals that we started when we did our veggie starts
• put up the twinkle lights in the trees
• weed the sidewalk strips
• replace a few of the plants we lost over the winter from last year's landscape-o-rama (namely, the jasmine and one of the clematis)
• get two more metal bins from IKEA to store a few things on the back porch
• oil the front porch swing and rocker

There are other things we want to do, of course, but once we've taken care of those items, we'll be able to call it good for enjoying the yard whenever we want this summer

But working in the yard wasn't all we got accomplished this weekend. We relaxed in the evenings watching movies and cuddling under blankets with the kitties on the couch. And yesterday was reserved for non-work or chore items: Sally brewed another batch of beer (his third batch this month!) and I spent the day writing. Also a productive day: he got his batch put up AND the last batch bottled, and I reached a milestone of my own.

back to the grind

To a really hectic stretch of work this week and next, unfortunately. And I have a bunch of things to get done in the evenings this week, too, so no rest for the weary, I guess. Our first CSA pickup is tonight, and then I need to get my website clients updated when I get home, which means a late night, and probably tomorrow night, as well. Errands Thursday night, something I'm forgetting Friday, and a block party Saturday, which includes the neighborhood project of painting the intersection down the street (with a design that Sal and I haven't seen yet, but knowing our awesomely artistic neighbors, ought to be cool no matter what).

And today marks our 8 year house-iversary...8 years since the old girl became ours, and wow, has a lot changed since then. If I ever get our website updated before I start collecting Social Security, I'll have lots of new pictures of that progress.

Anyway, on to lunch. It was a busy weekend (more on that in another post) so there wasn't a lot of cooking happening from which to cull leftovers for lunch. Today's more of a smorgasbord, but that's never a bad thing, is it?

Laptop Lunch box:

• Applegate Farms pepperoni slices, alternating with smoked mozzarella slices
• sourdough bread
• steamed broccoli
• dark chocolate and yogurt covered raisins, with walnuts in the small inner container

happy birthday, sally!

I'm excited about the prospect of all the produce we'll be getting this summer, what with our regular bin delivery, our vegetable garden, and the CSA we signed up for this year. May have to scale back our bin delivery until the garden and CSA peter out in the fall, as it's entirely possible we'll be overrun with fruit and veggies, but that's a good problem to have, no? Still a few weeks yet until we'll see anything from the CSA, though, and it'll be a couple of months before the garden gets going, so no need to panic just yet.

But it does mean that every other Monday, my bentos tend to be a little forlorn as they await the arrival of the next delivery. While we had the grill going last night, I had Sally throw on a couple of chicken basil sausages to use in lunches this week.

Breakfast, cute animals sidecar:

• oatmeal, with Braeburn apple chunks underneath
• butter, brown sugar, and raisins in the mini-sidecar to mix in

Lunch, black strawberry box:

• chicken basil sausage
• julienne cucumber and carrot strips from the weekend's sushi party (see below)
• grilled potato with butter, sour cream, and green onion, leftover from last night's dinner
• Braeburn apple slices
• yogurt and dark chocolate covered raisins
• garlic dill cheese curds

Is there anything better than a gorgeous weekend in the Pacific Northwest? NO NO THERE IS NOT.

All weekend we had temps in the mid/high 70s, blue or mildly cloudy skies, and not a breath of wind. Our roses exploded all over the place in the last few days, and combined with the rhododendrons and azaleas and irises, I'm so in love with our house and our neighborhood I could burst. Next weekend we'll be doing some yard work -- weeding the back bed so the plants my mom put in don't get clogged into oblivion, trimming back the lilacs, pruning the apple tree, planting a few new and replacement things, and putting up the twinkle lights in the trees -- but the yard is in good enough shape already that when Sister, Guy, and the Fabulous Miss M came for the weekend, all that was needed was to set the patio chairs out for us to while away some time soaking up the gorgeous, gorgeous weather.

They came for Sal's birthday -- which is actually today; Happy Birthday, Sally!! -- and we had a nice, easy-going time with family to celebrate. Did a bit of running around Saturday-- to Portland Nursery to pick up the gift certificate and two black and blue salvia my mom had reserved for his gift -- then to Steinbart's so the boys could get all atwitter over brewing supplies. We stopped for lunch at Grilled Cheese Grill, which Guy hadn't yet been to, and though we had to wait in line thanks to the street fair going on down the block, we managed to have a yummy lunch all around. Back home to put Miss M down for her nap, and we passed the time at our wonderful table under the apple tree, which is all you really need in life, frankly.

After a run to New Seasons for supplies, and back home for a snacky interlude of bread and cheese while Miss M ate her dinner, she was off to the pre-bedtime ritual of jammies, storytime, and a goodnight song. Meanwhile, we got things ready for Sal's requested birthday activity: a sushi-rolling party! Great, great fun and lots of laughs while hoovering up plates of sushi in every combination we could think of. When the last of the sushi rice was rolled up, we retired to the living room to finish off our plates and watch Louis C.K.'s most recent stand-up show and finished off the evening with four mini-cakes, complete with candles and a rendition of "Happy Birthday".

The next morning, Guy treated the chef (and the rest of us) to a fabulous breakfast -- yeasted waffles with lemon-poppyseed creme -- and then it was time for them to head home. Afterward, I retired to the nook for a bit to edit while Sally read some of his brewing books out on the front porch. We moved to the patio, where I did so more editing, though mostly I just kind of sat there in contented silence, trying to absorb just how absolutely perfect the day was. We grilled for dinner -- steaks and potatoes, with some steamed broccoli and green onions from our bin. And though I had website work to do, I did absolutely none of it, opting instead to watch a movie and fold clothes (I am determined to stay on top of the laundry, dammit!), get to bed relatively early, read for a bit, and get a good night's rest. Website work will be there tomorrow, and anyway, I knew it was supposed to rain today. How's that for procrastination?

a house in order is a mind in order

Busy but productive weekend. The house had gotten to such a state that I was nearing a nervous breakdown if it wasn't dealt with post haste, so we got up (relatively) early Saturday, resisted the pull of the glorious weather, and busted out an impressive To Do List. It meant missing out on the St. Johns Parade and Bizarre (not Bazaar), unfortunately, but I knew if we didn't get to it, we'd regret it.

The house is gloriously clean again, all dishes washed and put away, our bedroom/attic restored to order (and thus our sanctuary-within-a-sanctuary is once again available), all laundry folded and put away, floors swept and vacuumed, etc. etc. We also got the porch rocker and swing put up, the patio raked, and the yard generally tidied up -- still need to put the decorations out, string the lights in the trees, and clean/sweep the back porch so we can use that, as well, but we're off to a good start for the summer.

When we were done, we scrapped plans to see Iron Man 2 in favor of staying in and enjoying our lovely home. I indulged in a bath and one of my bath bombs with the local jazz station playing in the background, used another of our new towels and just generally pampered myself, and then we had dinner and started a new show. (Jekyl, which is really fantastic. Kind of a cross between The X-Files, Memento, and Dexter, if you can imagine such a thing. With British accents.)

Sunday was our fun day. And another day of really fabulous weather. Sal brewed another batch of beer, I spent the day writing and editing. And finished off the day with a batch of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies that Sally made. Not a bad life, not a bad life at all.

black strawberry box:

• spicy taco-seasoned chicken breast with spinach leaves and cheddar shapes for garnish
• green onions and more cheese in the cups
• all of the above are meant to be heated and combined in the flour tortilla (packed separately in a ziploc) to make a taco
• broccoli for gap filler and a bit more veg
• braeburn apple slices and orange sections (I know, try to contain your shock at the absence of the ubiquitous dark chocolate and yogurt covered raisins...)

spring is in the air...

Busy weekend. I got no writing done this weekend, unfortunately (and synopsis still isn't done...) but I/we did get other things done. Did some housecleaning -- well, straightening, really...we're so far behind that we have to clean before we can clean! -- and the house looks marginally less like a sty than it did. The weather was just beautiful and we were able to open up all the windows throughout the house to really give it a good airing. Still have mountains of laundry to fold and put away and the floors all need to be swept and vacuumed (and if I were really going to do things right, I'd dust, but HAHAHAHAHAHA); perhaps I can tackle those this week. Oh, and I had to get all my monthly reports to my website clients and then everything invoiced, but that's all done at last.

Also got the soil in the garden beds worked and the compost from our compost bin amended into the soil, so they'll be ready for the starts we started earlier this spring. The starts trays are all out there now to acclimate to being outside and then we can go ahead and plant. Can't wait to get that garden going!

And because it was so nice out, we grilled! Well, Sal grilled, so today's lunch comes courtesy of last night's yummy leftovers.

pink strawberry sidecar (for breakfast):

• a-little-less-than-half an English muffin with strawberry preserves
• honey & nuts granola
• Greek yogurt with a dollop of strawberry preserves in the mini sidecar

black strawberry box:

• grilled chicken skewers marinated in a Thai peanut sauce
• jasmine rice (made in a beef broth, which is why it's brown)
• steamed broccoli
• fresh mango slices
• dark chocolate covered raisins
• dried cherries as gap fillers

Life is good

I am definitely getting more of these smaller boxes. They're just right for these days at home, or days when I can take both breakfast and lunch to work. And so much fun to pack! I love packing my two systems, but these are even more fun, if that's possible!

clockwise from right:

• tangerine, a few sweet pickles, some fresh string beans for baran, and bits of herb-roasted turkey breast slices from the New Seasons deli (they kind of come apart as you handle them since they're so thinly sliced, so I just sort of rolled bits and pieces together into a half dozen little rolls)
• picks with ends from the carrots and beans that had to be cut off to make them fit; underneath are alternating slices of rosemary-cheddar and Cotswold cheeses (the rosemary-cheddar, by the way, is made by a local cheesemaker and used to only be available at the Farmers' Market so I would buy a package everytime we went; the day New Seasons started carrying it, I did a little jig in front of the cheese case, ngl :)
• carrot sticks and dark chocolate-covered raisins

I'm working out of the nook today, so there's an added dimension of enjoyment of my little lunch box. Life is pretty great today.

in which we confirm i am not a luddite

GOD BLESS WIRELESS INTERNET CAFES OMG.

Got home late tonight after an action-packed day of work drama (NO COMMENT), hurried and fed the kitties, heated up a quick dinner and settled in to catch up on what my peeps (all y'all) been gettin' up to in the hiz-ouse (this here internet thingie). I'd no more than gotten changed into my comfy clothes, eaten a few bites of dinner, and read the first few posts on my f-list when the freaking power went out!

Because the whole house is in disorder with furniture everywhere, I acquired a full complement of new bruises and scrapes trying to navigate to candles and matches. I managed to find a phone book (HOLY CRAP I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY STILL MAKE THOSE AND MORE AMAZINGLY THAT WE KEPT ONE BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY AM I EVER GLAD THAT THEY DO AND WE DID), look up the number for PGE's outage reporting thingie, and with the few remaining minutes on my cell phone before the battery crapped out, report my outage. It's affecting a whopping three people on our block -- the neighbors next door and across the street had all the electric bliss they could possibly want and were entirely oblivious to me living in the LITERAL DARK AGES OVER HERE ACROSS THE STREET IN UTTER DARKNESS YOU GUYS SUCK AND I'M NEVER LENDING YOU ANOTHER CUP OF SUGAR THE END.

Since my laptop battery was about half out and the aforementioned cell phone was nearly out, and a way awesome 1909 Craftsman Bungalow is kind of scary in the complete and total darkness when you're all alone and have an inherent fear of the dark and you have a rather, um, active imagination (shut up)...I tore through the house in a panic positive something moved in the shadows calmly and quietly changed out of my clothes that make me look like a homeless person around-the-house clothes into something that's acceptable in public my work clothes, gathered up my laptop and cell phone (and charger) and headed to Anna Banana's (Ladybug closes at 7) where I would be safe from the horde of ax murderers lurking in every room of my house could surf the interwebz among my hipster neighbors. CLEARLY I WILL NEVER MAKE IT AS A MOUNTAIN WOMAN LIVING OFF THE LAND AND SURVIVING BY MY WITS.

Keep your fingers crossed for me that the nice PGE repair people can return the miracle of electricity to my little street and take a moment to warm yourself in the glow of cheap and abundant electricity that you don't even have to think about it just comes like magic every time you flip a switch or plug something in a wall.

up next: locusts

I'm fairly certain the Apocalypse is nigh.

Monday, when we were leaving for work, we noticed the street in front of our house (running under the Subaru) was wet. Not standing water, but like when a hose runs over a little bit. Didn't really think anything of it until we got home and noticed that the same spot was still there. We go up to our water meter box thingie (in the sidewalk strip) and there's water pooled a little bit in the rocks around it. Sal lifts the cover and the meter is submerged in water. Great.

It wasn't like a major leak or anything, but obviously, Something Was Not Right. We called the City but they couldn't come out until yesterday, and they determine that the leak was on our side of the meter, not theirs, so it was up to us to fix it. I call a plumbing company we use at work, they're great and are willing to give me our work discount, but they can't come out until today. And they didn't know what time today, which necessitated me working from home so I could be here. Hooray for telecommuting, at least.

Well, they came around 1:30 and have determined that we need to have a new main line run from our meter to our house. The leak is somewhere behind the big foundation wall in front of our house (our worst suspicion) and to repair it would involve tearing down that wall, digging down to freaking China, and having a structural engineer oversee rebuilding the wall, not to mention having to replace the sidewalk. In other words, it was cheaper to replace the entire line (they can just bore alongside the old one and without having to dig anything up, thank goodness) than to try to find the link and repair it.  The good news is that they'll be able to start and finish it tomorrow. The bad news is that Sal and I are going to have to sell a kidney. It's probably my turn, since he sold one of his for the last major financial disaster.

So I stay home today and just because today couldn't possibly be any worse, I woke up this morning to a house with no heat. In fact, that's why I woke up AT FIVE AM A FULL HOUR EARLIER THAN MY USUAL TIME BECAUSE THE ICE ON MY PILLOW WASN'T VERY CONDUCIVE TO SLEEP AND MY NOSE WAS DEVELOPING FROSTBITE AND I THINK I SAW A DUSTBUNNY ICE CUBE. Something's wrong with the thermostat, although I gave up trying to figure out exactly what around 11:30 and have since been working from the dining room table with a space heater and blanket wrapped around me all day. As of right now, it's slightly warmer outside our house than inside. Sal's going to try to get that fixed tonight so hopefully we won't freeze to death. But if you read about a couple of Hall-sicles in the news, you'll know what happened.

And finally, my cable modem was down not once but THREE SEPARATE GODDAMN TIMES today, although I was able to get that working again AFTER MUCH SCREAMING AND HURLING ABOUT OF THINGS. Poor Sally, who had to listen to me have a breakdown over the phone and who cut his day short at work to try to save me from our house, which is trying to kill me. But, BUT! I have been working diligently on my work stuff.  DEAR EMPLOYERS NEVER FEAR I HAVE BEEN A PRODUCTIVE EMPLOYEE DESPITE ALL THE DRAMA THAT IS MY LIFE AT THE MOMENT AND SERIOUSLY YOU SHOULD TOTALLY BE GLAD I'M SO DEDICATED BECAUSE OMG WOE KTHXBYE.

I fully expect the Four Horseman to show up for dinner.