New York City Part I

Geez. Everything takes longer than you think. I've been working on this forever and this is only part 1 of who knows how many installments.

I've got the first round of photos up on Flickr. More to come.

Bob and I have a long list of places we'd like to visit and New York City comes up in every conversation. I can't believe it took us this long to make it there.

For his 50th birthday he wanted to see the Allman Brothers at the Beacon theater and their NYC run happens during Spring Break so we had the perfect excuse to make the trip.

On Wednesday (3/21) we hopped on a jetBlue red eye at midnight and tumbled off the plane at JFK a few hours later at 8:00am NYC time. The airfare was cheap and it sounds dreamy but I don't sleep well on planes so this isn't my favorite way to travel. But hey, it's vacation.

We took the Airtrain to Jamaica Station and then bought our $24 for the week Metrocards and headed into Manhattan.

We had no problem finding our hotel but our apartment wasn't ready yet so we dropped off our luggage and headed out into the NYC morning.

We found bagels and tea and fortified and then headed to Times Square. It was cold. Cold enough for coats which I didn't have. I was primed from our winter but my head and ears felt like they were going to fall off. There were still muddy piles of snow on the ground from the week before. We stopped at a souvenir shop and I picked out a hat. The guy knew what I wanted and cut the tag off for me. He said he had other customers doing the same thing. This is the best hat to cover my ears that I've ever had.

We got turned around several times. How can you not? What are the landmarks, tall buildings? I'm sure you get used to it but we weren't there long enough to do it without a lot of head scratching.

We headed to our first exhibit at the International Center of Photography. It's Martin Munkasci who more or less pioneered the idea of action in fashion photography. The photography center also featured a Henir Cartier Bresson exhibit.

Bob grew up with a professional photographer in the house and has a much better knowledge of photography than I do. I first learned of Bresson at an exhibit on one of our Europe trips and I got him right away and it was love at first sight. There is always something going on in his photos. I described it as movement. In the exhibit he says he learned from Munkasci that a photo could tell a story.

This particular exhibit came about because he was captured during WWII and presumed dead. A museum in NY prepared a memorial exhibit and when Bresson escaped and found out, he wanted to contribute to his retrospective. An amazing collection of photos.

At this point we could get into our room so we went back to get settled and I took an epic and completely life altering nap which made me feel 110% more human. When we left to go out again, it was at least 15 degrees warmer. It was crazy but we didn't complain.

We found a Japanese restaurant and ordered big. A family friend of Bob's lives in NYC and he met us for dinner. After dinner, we took a little walk in the theater district and found the Lyceum theater where we had tickets to see Inherit the Wind. I know squat about how theater works but apparently our show was a preview. It was fantastic. Brian Dennehy and Christopher Plummer. And it's a really great play.

After our show we walked around the theater district. It rained a bit but the city was more active than earlier. Lots of people. High energy. Cars. Cabs. People. Pedicabs. Horse carriages. Police on horseback.

Portland has police on horseback and I always thought it was a bit ridiculous but here I can almost see where it makes sense. A horse might get around where a car cannot. There was a big truck charging down the street honking. He pulled up right behind a woman police officer on horseback. She hollered at him to get the fuk off her ass.

I Love This Town!

Then she "pulled him over." I asked Bob to stop so I could watch. I asked him if it would be rude for me to walk over so I could watch more closely. I doubt anyone would care but I didn't do it. We ended up at the House of Brews where earlier we'd had a dispute because I wouldn't eat a hamburger and drink a beer before going to a play. The place was near our apartment. It was crowded and smelled like stale beer but we found a seat and our server was an adorable young woman. It was the kind of place I would have loved in my 20's. I still liked it on vacation. While we were in there I realized that at my current age, I've been legal to drink longer than I was not.

There's loud music and basketball on the TV. Cute boys. Good people watching. We try the Brooklyn Lager.

Super Fun
We're back and a fabulous 10-star trip.

And look what was waiting for us when we got home. I noticed them in the dark when we were pulling our luggage out of Priscilla's trunk at midnight last night. Lots of daffodils in the backyard as well.

When I told my college roommate, Trish, that we were going to make our first trip to New York City, she said: You are going to love it and hate it. That sums it up perfectly.

I thought I'd get around to it today, but turns out, I'm dead tired. The trip was fantastic but not relaxing. My husband is quite the task master. I'd be nudged awake in the morning: "I brought you a bagel. We need to be on the subway in 20 minutes." When it was my turn to pick something to do it was usually a nap or some sort of nap variation. You know, sitting down to eat, rest or partake of an adult beverage.

I'm going to write an epic or a couple of epic posts this weekend. Also, photo stream.

On the plus side, and I hate to even mention it lest I jinx myself, I've been sleeping like the dead. Nothing like marching all over New York City from 9am to midnight to get a body in the mood for sleep.

Since we got home so late I took off work today. We unpacked and worked on the laundry pile. Sorted out mail. I tricked my husband into going to Target with me. Since we've met I've never asked him to go on stupid shopping expeditions and I noticed he had plenty of things for the basket but he still couldn't resist the urge to complain. Then we bought a carload of food. Then I dealt with the car shop on getting my bumper repaired. Then I did a bunch of yard work because it was sunny and a perfect day for it.

By 4pm I was exhausted again and braindead and could only prop myself in front of the TV and catch up on a few shows.

More coming up soon. But first: Cadbury eggs have gotten smaller! They should be smaller because geez, that was a huge load of sugar intake but what a world. All the candy is getting smaller.

[Can you believe it? It's even in Wikipedia.]

The Storm Before the Calm

Our parking garage at the office has tandem parking. The person who arrives 2nd must leave his keys with the parking attendant who will move the car as needed. I arrive early in the morning so I'm always in the first spot. I've made friends with the parking attendant and if the garage isn't too busy at the end of the day, he has my car clear by the time I leave. Today was a busy day and several people were waiting with blocked cars, including me, so I thought I'd take a few photos of the cars while I waited. They didn't turn out as groovy as I'd hoped.

My sweetheart and I are about to go on an adventure and I'll be offline for a week. I might check in tomorrow before we take off if time permits and if I come up with anything interesting to say.

I looked at my vacation time today and realized I haven't taken off any significant time since August. No wonder I'm so cranky about work.

I'm really looking forward to real vacation time in a brand new environment and no work or commute or housework or Internet to distract me from having real world adventures.

I bought another camera card. Probably way bigger than I'd possibly need but I didn't want to have to delete photos mid-trip or feel like I have to hold back. I've also got my usual pile of mini-notebooks to carry with me to take notes and draw goofy little pictures.



These are brand new socks. I've only put them in the wash 4 times. Shouldn't socks hold together longer than that? And that big hole popped out magically in my shoe between the time I left for work and arrived at the office. I shook my shoes off at the office so I could fold my feet under me on my chair and was a bit horrified to see my big fat toe, which in this photo looks like a lightbulb, poked out. Buying cheap stuff is hardly ever worth it.

We've had a series of crises as we're trying to get ready to be away. Well, crises is a bit dramatic. We've had a pile of chores that needed to be tended to. Bob fixed our fence which disintegrated in December during a wind storm and we never got around to doing much about it.

If you check that post from December it also mentions this fender bender where this lady destroyed my front bumper. Long story short: we've made no progress on the matter. I admit I sort of dropped the ball in terms of following up but her insurance was hard to deal with and apparently she was uncooperative with them and meanwhile I have a big fat cracked bumper. I finally called my insurance company and got the ball rolling on that.

We have a carpenter ant infestation. I opened the blinds in my room and the troops were bursting out of a crack in the window sill. Crap. This is exactly the sort of home owner problem that we both are terrible at dealing with. I'm omitting lots of details but I have multiple follow ups to do on this item.

Sears still hasn't finished with my vacuum. I was given a bag of plants identified as Lilies but looking like Iris to me (like I'm such a plant expert) that I threw into the ground tonight in a chilly wind. I'm still waking at 3:30am. I need to clean out the stuff that will go ooky from the fridge. Water the plants. Make sure I have weather appropriate clothes. Technology charged and updated. Current reading materials.

Ah, but vacation. Vacation. Vacation.

Oven Not Cleaner
I need to clean my oven and every week I write myself a note about this with other things I want to remember on the weekend and every weekend I can't find my note until Sunday night when I don't have time. I'm sure it's just a coincidence.

We're traveling for the first time since the whole liquid ban whatever on planes. I just checked the TSA website to see what the current restrictions are and I can't even fathom how stupid this is. It's hard to believe there is anyone with a brain cell working on security in this country.

Garden Work
I got my wish and we've had garden weather. I decided to pick one area to focus on and I went for the front bed because this the first thing I see when I drive up after a long day at the office and it would be nice to enjoy something pretty. The photo above is the before picture. Last Fall I did very little clean up out front partly because I'm lazy and partly because the neighborhood cats seem to think that fresh clear dirt is an invitation for them to come on over and do all their business.


The front flower bed was my main project but when you're out in the yard at this time of year, everywhere you look there's work to do. So as I went back to find a shovel I'd get sidetracked whacking back some dead branches and then when I went back to get the yard debris can I'd find a few dandelions to dig up so I kept busy without finishing a whole lot. This shows the bed after I finished cleaning out the dead stuff. The remaining plants, besides the lavender, are a couple of orange things that I think reseed themselves every year and they look nice and they're already there so I left them in.

Whatever gene people have where they know about color and decorating/arranging is a gene that I was born without. Or maybe not. I like to think that creativity is about effort and I don't put a whole lot of effort into figuring out color/decorating/arranging. When it comes to gardening I go the big box store garden center and walk around and buy things that I like and look like I can keep alive without much thought to the big picture. If you saw a picture of my entire yard, this would not surprise you.


When I went to the big box garden center everything they had that I liked was purple. I knew the front already had orange but I wanted to buy what I liked so I'm just hoping that when everything comes in all flowery and colorful that the neighbors are impressed by my bold color choice. The above is the bed when I finished with it. This part is always a bit demoralizing when you've done so much work and you're all dirty and stinky and you have these teeny little plants swimming in a huge pile of dirt. (Which the cats have already scratched in, not 24 hours later!) A month from now it will look amazing, hopefully, and I still might go get some petunias at Fred Meyer for some extra color in the front bare spots.


In addition to the front bed, I planted a new rose in the front where the old one met an early end during some enthusiastic lawn mowing. The rose was on sale for half price which leads me to believe that only an idiot would plant a rose bush at this time of year but I think the purpose of this entire post is to support the idea that I am that idiot. I also planted some random plant that looked like it would get big and pretty and thrive on neglect and I have a corner of the backyard that needs just this sort of plant.

My next door neighbor was working on his raspberries and asked if I would like a few canes. Perfect because last year I dug up my raspberry patch since it it never produced more than 6 raspberries. So I set this all up. My neighbor's patch is so prolific that he showed up at our door twice last summer with a 10 gallon bowl of raspberries begging us to take some. It would make more sense for me to grow something different and then trade. But I like raspberries and he'll just have to knock on more doors next summer.

Save the Chocolate, Save the World
This is my cheater post that I'm really doing on Friday but Saturday is my no computer day.

This is about two things that earlier I thought I would probably not write about because I wasn't sure how they would sound.

#1 — is my bad customer service experience. I had planned to never mention it again, but I'm going to tell you the outcome. The company is called Moonstruck Chocolate and if you want to buy your fancy chocolates from a company who cares a great deal about customer service, this should be your first stop.

This is a Portland based company. I've never tried them before and I stopped in to pick up something for my chocoholic husband for his birthday. I was unhappy with the customer service which I thought was subpar especially for something like chocolate. Have you ever been to See's? If not, I'm very sorry. Those ladies practically vault over the counter to hand you a free sample of super butter chocolate brickle surprise and ask you if you're familiar with the cherry-chocolate white truffle rum-raisin delight or the new sparkling butter-fudge ripple nut spectacular. I'm a See's girl.

But I wanted to try something new for Bob and I purchased a pre-made box and jetted off an email complaining about the customer service which I characterized as unenthusiastic and uninterested or something like that.

Not only did I receive an apologetic email. I got a phone call asking all the details of my experience which made me a teeny bit embarrassed since I was young once and I'm sure I had my worthless moments when I was manning the register for the Jack-in-the-Box on Kanan Road in Agoura. The point is: they made a major point of wanting to make it right so I will fer-sure be going back although I hope those kids don't look me up and throw rocks or drinking chocolate at me if they see me in the future.

#2 — is even harder to explain without sounding a teeny bit like an asshole. Like those actresses who tell about how hard their life was because they were so beautiful or rich people who go on about their difficult life with money floating into their hands.

From about age 15 to 35 my feelings about my weight were something that colored every aspect of my existence. It was the extra 15-40 pounds that killed my life. How that changed would be a ten page post that I'm not going to get into right now. The short version is that lots of inner work and yoga and a great spouse and just time healed all that and several years ago I finally settled into a weight that felt like it was right for me. No more agony of worrying about losing weight.

Then last year at this time my digestive system melted down and it became much more difficult to overeat or even enjoy yummy stuff that's fried or fatty or I feel awful. For example, Bob's birthday celebration was at a Mexican Restaurant and they brought out the giant plates of chips with huge globs of heavenly melted cheese and I ate like 4 bites and had a hard time falling asleep later with all the churning in my innards.

This week I ran into my favorite clothing stop Ann Taylor Loft where about 80% of my wardrobe comes from because those clothes fit me and because my Mom gives me a gift certificate there for xmas every year. I had an adorable young girl named Jasmine helping pick out stuff.

I explained to Jasmine that I needed everything because by this cruel twist of fate, the Universe was making me lose weight easily now that I was old and married and didn't care quite so much and none of my clothes fit me. She gave me this horrified look of betrayal and said, "My Mom said it was harder when you got older." And I said, "Yeah, that's what I thought, too."

We picked out a boatload of pants and tried them all on and they were too big. She came in to see how I was doing and I said I had to try a size smaller and she said: "You have to tell me about this yoga class you're taking."

I don't think it's all me. I think the clothing industry is insane and just keeps making stuff up to massage the American woman ego. I read somewhere that a movement to follow the European standard was quashed because an American woman would never buy a size 32. I would ! I would love to not spend the first 30 minutes of every shopping trip just figuring out what my size is.

I'm not going to make any excuses about being comfortable about my weight since it was a long, hard journey to get here and with all my other head trips, it's not like I'm frolicking in an eternal unicorn paradise. But whenever I feel like some goal is completely impossible, I think about how many years I thought I would never feel normal about eating and body image and it feeds my hope.

Yesterday's photo was from last years dahlias and today's is a photo of the rocks in Dillon Creek, California.

What a long and hectic week. One night I got home at 5:30, two nights I got home after 8 and last night I got home at 9:30.

Domestic chaos abounds.

However, the sun is out and the garden calls so I'm off to the garden center.

I leave you with this thought about Battlestar Galactica.

I can't remember exactly but I think there are only 40,000 humans left. Yet everytime President Roslin does a press conference, there are like 40 reporters. Does that population really warrant a press corps of that size? There must be plenty of other jobs that need doing. Manufacturing. Everybody needs clothes and toothbrushes and soap. Where is that stuff coming from?

Yes, I realize this line of thinking is very Clerks but my mind actually works this way. Like the cyclon Six and her fancy underwear after her romps with Gaius? Where did that come from? I realize the cylon manufacturing would be separate from the human, my point is: who has the time and energy to make silk lingerie when you're fighting in space?

Witchy Woman
I had a such a great sleeping week last week I thought I was home free but this week my body's alarm clock is back on 4am except for yesterday when it was 3am. Maybe this is seasonal. Maybe I'm supposed to be coming out of hibernation and getting up early and plowing my fields and bringing calves and lambs into the world. I'll have to go to Fred Meyer this weekend and get some.

Today's technology gripe: don't you hate it when you do something like send an email, post a comment, or publish your blog and your computer says: Wah! That didn't work.

Then you do it again and now you've done it twice? That happens to me all the time.

There was a day when I loved to fire off a bad customer service complaint letters but these days I often find that I'd prefer to use my time and energy for other things. However, on Monday I had a bad experience that rubbed me the wrong way enough that I wrote a toasty note about it. It wasn't a huge deal but it was an expensive item and I had trouble getting help and when I did the person was completely worthless to the extent I thought I should apologize for bothering her.

I sent an email and my computer freaked out and said I wasn't allowed to do that which seemed odd. I waited 24 hours and heard nothing so I resent the next day. I still have heard nothing and now I'm sure both messages went through and they think I'm a shrill harpie with nothing better to do than complain about their $7.80 an hour staff.

Well maybe I am.

Best Day Ever
Yesterday morning I took the bus because I was meeting Bob downtown later and he could take me home.

There was a passenger who broke the all time record for shortest time period before I want to strangle a complete stranger. She could not stop talking to the lady next to her and there was nothing too boring to skip over.

She had a catalog and went through it page by page: "I have a sheets like this. Mine are 400 count and a lighter blue. I paid $89.99 which was a great deal. Usually they're $109.99 but I had a gift card and a coupon and I used them together. At first they weren't going to let me but I made a fuss and they did it. The edges are started to wear. And it has a coffee stain. It made me so mad. Gladys and Wilbur Hinkewiggle and their daughter Penelope stayed with me. They didn't watch for things. They stayed for 10 days. We went to Mt. St. Helens. It was raining. We had pancakes for breakfast. I had blueberry syrup … ."

Are you ready to brain yourself yet?

She didn't wear a wedding ring and I wondered if she ever stayed up late on a Saturday night talking to her cats and wondering why she was still alone.

I left the office at lunch time and met Bob at South Park for a fantastic fancy lunch. I had the steelhead special which was served with potatoes and these roasted onions that came with long green stems and were delicious but hard to eat. At one point I had a big blob of onion dangling down my throat half gagging me while the rest of was stuck in my mouth and had to resort to drastic measures which were pretty gross to avoid choking or gakking up part of my lunch. If you happened to see that, sorry. I was truly embarrassed.

After lunch we stopped by the museum to see the Elliot Erwitt exhibit which was excellent and then back over the river to El Presidente where Bob had an informal birthday party. A whole bunch of people stopped by to wish him well and eat nachos and drink margaritas. Excellent celebration day.

Happy 50th Birthday Bob!
You are my favorite person on the planet. I wish you the best birthday ever.

Photo by Jim Hughes

HA!
Look at these beautiful loaves. They aren't crusty sourdough, they're squishy buttermilk wheat but they look pretty and taste wonderful. So wonderful that I ate about half a loaf with butter last night and then felt too full and uncomfortable when I went to bed. The chocolate cake also turned out good although now we have a giant cake leftover that we've got to get people to eat. One of us will have to take it to work.

Bakasana
One hour shouldn't be a big deal but I always feel ripped off on the day we start Daylight Savings time. I'm already behind before I even get out of bed.

This morning I decided to linger in bed to read since I haven't read a book in a couple of weeks. Then Bob brought me some chai and the free donut that comes with it so I ate that. So now I'm more than an hour behind and wired on sugar. Yay me.

This month is eleven years since I started taking yoga classes. Before that I noodled a bit using pictures in a book but never had anything resembling a real practice. It took me a couple years of classes before I developed a solid home practice but when we moved into this house 9 years ago and I had my own space, that's when I became more dedicated.

Yesterday I did a new yoga thing that I've never done before. From downward dog you jump your feet up and float yourself into crow pose.

This my teacher Bill demonstrating crow. There was no boulder involved in my pose. Several years ago when Bill introduced the float into crow in class and I thought it was impossible. How could you possibly land on your arms like that without falling forward on your face?

Bill's teaching philosophy goes something like: it doesn't matter if you do the pose, just have fun trying. He says to try it three times a day and maybe a week, maybe a year, maybe 10 years you'll be able to do it. This is well suited to my learning style because if I thought I had to do it all right away, I'd never have stuck with it.

Ever since my first class there have always been yoga poses, even beginner poses, that seemed impossible. I spent a great deal of time during my first three years of practice wishing I started yoga earlier so I could do these poses already.

Even now after all these years, there are always new things to learn.

With the floaty crow pose I'd practiced not three times a day, but regularly and for a long time it remained something to try but not to do. Then one day I landed my legs on my arms but my feet still touched the floor. Suddenly, this pose was a possibility in my mind. I couldn't do it yet but I could see how it was possible.

Then it was more fun to practice and I kept at it until last week I floated into it except for one toe that grazed the floor. So close. Yesterday I knew was going to be the day and on my second try I jumped, I floated and I landed on my arms. And then I kept doing it over and over with about 50% success until I rubbed half the skin off the back of my arms.

The point of me telling this whole story is I think there is a metaphor about life in there somewhere.

(Top photo is from the farmer's market last year. The bottom image used without permission from Bill.)

Vegetarian Reprogramming Works
I scribbled all kinds of notes for possible posts and I'm going to blob it all into one because tomorrow is computer-free day.

When I got married I had been a vegetarian for quite some time. It's hard to remember how long now but I think at least 10 years and I was strict. No clam dip. No: "I'm a vegetarian except I eat chicken and fish." I think I even toyed with veganism on and off.

I gave it up because I was having a hard time staying warm during the winter and a naturopathic Chinese medicine doctor (for real!) suggested I think about adding a little bit of meat back into my diet. Once I got used to the idea, I never looked back and I exaggerate little when I say my spouse was ecstatic.

We recently went to a party with a friend of Bob's who he hadn't seen since we got married. You should have seen the look of relief on her face when she found out I'd crossed back over to the dark side. She said she'd make barbecue. I whipped out my datebook: when? when? when?

While I enjoy eating meat I don't eat a lot of it and very rarely beef. Last night Bob was kinda cranky and he thought a Steakburger for dinner would make his night so I said: let's go for it.

Steakburger is a local favorite with excellent milkshakes AND a miniature golf course. If I'd met Bob 30 years earlier, we'd probably gone on a date at the mini-golf. Of course, I would have been 13 and he would have been 20 so it would have been creepy but why get caught up in the details of our pretend scenario?

My 3 regular readers might remember that my digestive system freaks out if I eat too much fat (or overeat or pretty much overindulge in *anything* super delicious except for booze, thank heaven for small favors) so I was a little nervous about eating a hamburger but Bob was so happy and I didn't want to cook. Guess what: it was fantastically magically delicious. The whole bun, sauce, grilled meat and shredded lettuce: texture and yum. I could have inhaled the whole thing in 3 bites. Bob also got fries, which my digestive system totally hates, but they were the steak cut and insanely good. I woke up at midnight and was aware of my innards but nothing to cry about. I think we will be returning to Steakburger.

This morning I ran a bunch of errands and when I got home around noon I was starving and all I could think about was: a Steakburger would sure be good. Instead I decided to finish off that tiny bit of lasagna from the other night only it was gone. So then I got tamales out of the freezer and treated myself to those.

After an hour or so of crippling laziness I pulled myself together and decided to crank some Cult, Electric which is an awesome record, and I rocked out around my kitchen and realized how much cooler I am than stupid lawyers [long story omitted and besides, how cool can a lawyer be?] and made some granola.

My hero Mark Bittman did a homemade granola recipe recently and I cut it out but didn't try it right away thinking: come on, how great can it be for the trouble? Then one of the blogs I read wrote about this exact thing. And she tried the granola recipe and proceeded to eat nothing else for days.

"Well, if it's that good," I thought. I finally got enough ingredients together and made it this afternoon and oof, it smells like heaven in a pan. I've tasted a few nuggets but I'm going to test it tonight for dessert with some yogurt. This may be a life-defining recipe.

I've seen daffodils around town and on the Portland Flickr Stream but this is the closest I have in my yard. The photo is crap because my hands were all yucky because I just emptied my compost bowl into the compost bin and I touched the slimy stuff in the bottom of the bowl to get it all in there. I couldn't hold the camera properly.

Yesterday I was at the downtown mall on my lunch hour. I find that I rarely take a real lunch. I always think I'll just leave early and then I don't leave early so I'm trying to get out of the office for a bit in the afternoon. I have an Ann Taylor gift certificate and I do this every freaking year: I wait until all the Spring stuff is out and I hate pastels and I hate capri pants. I don't mind if you like them and you wear them. For me, I hate them. Not negotiable. I found maybe one thing I sort of liked and I wasn't in the mood so I didn't even make it to the changing room.

While at the mall I heard this song and wanted to cover my ears. I guess it's an exaggeration to say The Waterboys is one of my favorite bands but I love their music and it always sounds good to me. This was a cover of "The Whole of the Moon" which is one of my favorite songs and it was being sung by what I refer to as a bleating pop singer. Who? Why? My iTunes store search (which I use for research but do not support because of DRM) says it's Mandy Moore. Why Mandy, why? You were so wonderful in that movie where you had cancer and made me weep but why sing this song?

My other topic has to do with The History Channel. I'm not one of those people who says they only watch TV if it's the Discovery Channel or the History Channel or something educational. I like shows with vampires, superheroes, pirates, dragons and especially all of those at the same time. But I read about this History Channel thing on The Dark Ages so I taped it and it was awesome. It's amazing how the decisions of one person had such incredible impact like old Clovis converting to Catholicism and poor Justinian "I just pulled the empire together and married an exotic dancer and now we all have the black plague". Great show.

For tonight, I have the DVD of The Science of Sleep directed by my hero Michel Gondry and starring the adorable Gael Garcia Bernal. I fell in love with it when I saw the trailer.

I Owe You Nothing
Not much to report here. I've been working on my story for my writers group. Amazing, me writing again. It wasn't great but had a beginning, middle and end and I put forth a decent effort and I sent it off to them this morning so they will hopefully have time to read it by Saturday.

I always bake a treat for our meetings and I've been eyeing these layer cake recipes in Cooks Illustrated. I've never made a layer cake before. But after my latest series of baking disasters, I don't think I'm up for the challenge quite yet. I'm going to make a sheet cake which seems like a slam dunk.

I won $4 in the Powerball. $4! Writing a story. Winning Money. My luck is changing. I can feel it.

This morning on the radio they were asking: if you were a billionaire and could have anyone you want play at your birthday party, who would you hire?

At first I couldn't think of anyone that I cared that deeply about. I'd rather hire a fun band that Bob would like since he has so many. Then I decided The Replacements and I think you'd need a billion dollars to get the last line up of the 'Mats in one place. The most obvious choice would be U2. I'd like them, too.

Mmm, rabbits. That sounds delicious.
I'm out of time before I've started but the good news is: slept from 8:30pm to 5:30am. I feel human again. I'm also loving the sunshine. I don't even have the light on in my office.

Today's Foodday includes a recipe for Welsh Rarebit. The NYT had a WR recipe awhile back that I had cut out and finally tried this weekend. The recipes are similar except the NYT has twice as much cheese. Glad I found that one first.

The basic recipe is that you get a hunk of cheese about the size of your head and melt it with butter, seasonings and a tasty beer (not like Coors Lite). You let it cool and thicken and bit and then spread it on toast and put it under the broiler. It's just as fantastic as it sounds.

How To Clean Your Baking Stone
First I took it outside to chip off all the baked on bread crust. I had to get pretty rough. I took it outside so I wouldn't spend the rest of the day vacuuming bread crumbs from every crevice in the kitchen.

Once the major chunkage was off, I put the baking stone in the sink. I found a clean kitchen towel and got it wet and draped it over the baking stone and let it sit. Periodically I'd check on it and find that the now softened bread bits were ready to scrape off.

When all the crust was gone I sprinkled the whole stone with baking soda and a drizzle of water and gave it a good scrub. Thorough rinse and voila: nice clean baking stone ready for the next baking disaster.

In other news, I know this is a tiresome subject (ha ha) but I woke up at 1:30a this morning. 1:30! I've been up since 1:30! Have you noticed the worst nights are always the nights before work? Nothing like starting the work week tired and cranky.

Sometimes The Kitchen Fills Me With Despair
There is no end to ways I can find to make me feel bad about myself.

This weekend's bread baking has been an exercise in monstrous futility. The sourdough hijacks the entire weekend. It must be baby-sat like a puppy with feeding and temperature adjustments and taking out at carefully monitored intervals. I thought I did okay this time since I was getting it to rise and it smelled nice and sourdoughy but my final shaped loaves didn't rise as much as they oozed to the edges of the pan where they were resting.

Still they had a nice shape but they felt a tad sticky and I was out of time dangit—I needed my oven for dinner making purposes. I had a miserable time getting them out of their floured towel and onto the baking stone so they looked like spilled dough blobs and not like pretty loaves. They looked slightly better when baked and browned except I could not get them off the baking stone, even with a chisel and mallet.

At this point, dinner is ready to go in the oven. The bread must come out. The first one I ripped off the stone and the second one I sliced off the stone. Now I have a lava hot baking stone thickly crusted with the bottom half of my stupid bread that I spend all day babysitting and got flour and dough and crumbs all over my kitchen for and didn't even turn out good and now how do I prevent the crust from igniting while I bake the dinner? Normally the baking stone lives in the oven.

I left the oven door open to get it cool enough so I could pull out the stone and load it onto a cutting board and it sits there still and makes me mad every time I walk in the kitchen. I still have to chip all the burned crust off of it.

The whole thing was a feel-bad experience. I'm going to take a break from baking for awhile.

My dear husband sliced off a thick, half-crusted slice and spread some margarine, Nutella and jam on it and proclaimed it delicious. That's why I love him.

When I wasn't making crappy bread I was breaking my vacuum and going to drop it off at Sears in the Mall on a Saturday sounded hideous. There used to be a tiny Sears outlet not far from our house. I called it the most depressing retail site in America because it looked like nothing had been cleaned or updated since 1954 and dusty packages of drill bits dangled from hooks on displays that were one swift breeze from collapsing.

I would go in there and there would be one other person in line and the defeated clerk tapping on the moldy Tandy 2000 and it would still take a half hour. One day I pulled up to grab some vacuum bags and the store was empty and somehow they'd managed to move all the junk inside without disturbing the dust.

Before I broke the vacuum, I cleaned out the fireplace so I could enjoy warming my toes in front of a crackling fire. I failed several attempts at fire making until I finally stuck a giant wad of newspaper in there, doused it with lighter fluid and whoosh! The entire front half of the house warmed up.

Just kidding about the lighter fluid! I don't want to give my poor dad a heart attack. There's more headache about the wood I used but I won't get into it now. We never have the right tools.

There is no computer break this weekend because I'm working on something for my writers group (another unsatisfying creative endeavor) and I need to send it to them tonight. That's today's project.

Distractions
I read a yoga book one time where the teacher warned about eliminating all possible distractions during practice time. She said you'd be surprised how strong and immediate the urge to vacuum could hit when you were right in the middle of practice.

I'm sure most folks would more likely be distracted by the television or a plate of brownies, but I could relate to the cleaning thing. I often clean or garden when I'm putting off something else.

Remember dead week at college? Everyone did laundry. You had to take a number at the laundry room.

Another reason yoga makes me think of cleaning is because you get into positions where you can see things that you normally never see. If you've got your chin on the floor you can spot even the tiniest dust bunny in the corner behind the potted plant.

This morning I did some shoulder openers against the wall. I had my cheek against the wall while I wiggled my scapula around and noticed this long partial strip of that (almost) worthless blue tape I used during the great home improvement project of last year. You use the blue tape to cover things you don't want to paint and then pull it off and it's supposedly all pretty and unpainted underneath. I found that it didn't work nearly that well.

You'd never know this strip of tape was there unless you were doing shoulder openers against the wall but it was all I could do to not stop and rip that tape off immediately. If there were yoga poses against the ceiling I'd probably see nothing but spider webs.

Always on the Ball
When I was in grade school I had a friend whose last name was Ball. Her Dad bought her and her sister a red rubber ball. The kind you use to play handball against the garage or that back and forth game in the street - I think we called it two-square. He told her to put their name on it so if it rolled off, the neighbors would know where to return it.

She wasn't sure how to go about doing this. If she put just her name, it would make her sister mad. But she wasn't going to put just her sister's name because it was her ball, too. She didn't want to put both their names because seemed awfully busy for this rubber ball. And she didn't want to put her last name because people would find it and see: Ball. Duh.

I thought I could wring a lot more out of this story when I remembered it last night but that's about it. I think she finally put both their names on it and I can't believe a 2nd grader engaged in such a complicated logic process for labeling a toy.

Not much to report here. It's raining and 40-ish which seems like the perfect combination for me not being able to warm up. I wear fuzzy socks and drink gallons of hot tea and try not to compulsively check the thermostat.

Sleep remains uneven. I woke up before 5am every day this week so my goal for this morning was to sleep until after 5a. Made it to 5:40! Let the celebration begin. This after being up for an hour or so in the night because of too much Mexican food and margaritas. Still draggy ass. I had big ambitions for this afternoon which have dwindled to reading the paper and magazines. Sometimes I get a second wind after 5p so maybe I can use my brain productively this evening.

I've got the sourdough out again this weekend. The main cooking project is a traditional Boston Baked Beans recipe from the NYT that Bob said he would like me to try.

That's the news from here.