An Unsettled Sunday

That's what my yesterday felt like--unsettled.  I cast my mind back to troll for something to write about this morning and it feels like I had big gaps in my day.  I didn't, at least I don't think that I did.  I hemmed a couple pairs of capris that were too long for my stubby legs, then I got the laundry started.--and promptly forgot about it until after supper.  I watered everything in the backyard that held still--the garden, Durwood's raspberries, the lilies & hostas on top of the retaining wall, the herbs & flowers in pots all around the patio.  It was suffocating hot out there yesterday.  Only about 90 (only, Barbara, really?) but there wasn't a breath of wind stirring.  I took it in stages with cooling in between.  When I went out to water the patio pots there were about six yellow-jackets skating on the birdbath.  It looked pretty cool.  Durwood made Slow-Roasted Tomato Ketchup to have with our supper hot dogs to try it out, to see if he wants to make more to serve at August's Family Supper.  It is fabulous, and so easy to make.  All you do is preheat your oven to 275.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, cut in half (the long way) & seed 6-7 roma tomatoes, chunk up a medium onion.  Place them on the prepared baking sheet, sprinkle tomatoes with 2 Tblsp. brown sugar and 1/4 tsp. kosher or sea salt.  Drizzle tomatoes & onion with 1 Tblsp. EVOO.  Roast, uncovered, 2 hours, until onions are browned and tomatoes are softened yet moist.  In blender or food processor, process until tomatoes and onions are smooth.  Transfer to small bowl, stir in 1 Tblsp. hoisin sauce.  Let stand until ready to use.  Refrigerate remianing ketchup up to one week.  Makes 3/4 cup.  It's in the latest issue of Better Homes and Garden, and it's a keeper.  I did one smart thing for my supper; I cut a Flatout wrap in half and used a half to wrap my dog.  It held in the ketchup pretty well and was a whole lot less bread-y.  I'll do that again, and I'll get some for the Wiener-Off in August.  What's a Wiener-Off, you ask?  Well, instead of Durwood & I, the hosts, making the main course and asking the other couples at our Family supper to bring salad, veggies, and dessert, we'll make all that stuff and ask them to bring their favorite wieners.  We'll grill them all up and get to taste them all.  That's when more of that fabulous ketchup will be made too.  I dragged out all the Out West trip books and maps and the GPS so that we could figure out how far we can drive that first day.  We picked a place, Fargo, ND, and found an inexpensive motel to crash in.  Zooming across Wisconsin and Minnesota will make for a long day but it'll get us to the edge of the places we want to stop and gawk at.  We're getting excited, at least I am, to go out there.  I've never been and I can't wait.  Today's PAD (Photo A Day) July theme is "busy" so I snapped Durwood busy keeping his brain cells kicking over with a pile of crosswords earlier.  I'll get busy on my copies soon.  (He makes a copy of the puzzle in the newspaper and the Mensa 10-minute crossword every day so we can both do them both.  Smart guy, that Durwood.)  Look, writing!

July 2--Mesopotamia, Nimrud, Panel with a Male Figure Grasping a Tree, Winged Sun Disk Above.  Danika stood in the blazing sun, her hat in her hand.  She had been clearing the sand and sifting every shovel full of it for beads or fragments of pots or carvings.  The pile of her finds was small.  "Pathetic," she said to her friend Maya as they walked in the dawn light to the dig site.  "I don't expect to find another Tut, I'd love to but I know I won't.  I would like to find more than a handful of faience beads and stone chips."  Maya nodded in sympathy.  This was her second season.  Last year she'd found pieces of a mummified cat flung aside by tomb robbers.  Maya said, "No one's offering a grant to a dead cat-finder, that's for sure."  Now Danika stood eye to eye with a male figure carved on a panel.  She felt a chill up her back even in the desert heat.
 
That's it for me, chickens.  I'm off to play footsie with Durwood while I eat Cheerios and read the paper, then it's shower and dress for a day at work.  I wonder if I'll be busy or if everyone's hunkered down in the a/c away from the heat.  Time will tell.  Maybe I'll finish my afghan block today, that'd be good.  One thing I can't believe I'm saying, but I'm glad I'm not at The Clearing during these hot days.  Only the classroom, Lodge, and workshop are air-conditioned, not the cottages.  Hothothot.
--Barbara