A couple weeks ago I received the gift of a handmade book. It's a treasure. LC made it for me all by herself. She put my initials on the cover twice--"BM" for my name and "GM" for Grandma even though she calls me Meemaw--and the initials are backwards as is the book. She's left-handed and writing right to left and the way pages go takes time to work out. Inside is a picture of the Cat in the Hat and it says on the facing page, "The Cat in the Hat mad a mese." (psst, she read it to me and it says, "made a mess.") I love it, exclaimed over it, and think it's brilliant. She's 4 years old. "Four and a HALF, Meemaw." I can't wait for more.
All I have to show you today is flowers. Mostly lilies but the daisies, bee balm, and spiderwort were all blooming at the same time when I went out this morning looking so bright and cheery and like flowers should look, I think.
I also spent some time this morning digging out the weeds growing between the patio blocks. I sprayed weed killer the other day and was waiting for a not-too-humid day to dig out the corpses and today was the day.
This afternoon I visited Durwood and then came home because my baby brother came over to see me. His job takes him all over the country so I don't get to see him much. We visited for a couple hours and I got to show off my garden. It was great to see him. We plan to get together more often now that his office is in DePere (5 miles away).
July 19--Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Strawberries. Such a sensual red. The berries glowed with the perfect red, ripe and glistening. You had to be careful not to fill your pail too full or the weight of the berries would crush them all into mush, but such a sweet mush. It only took the barest sprinkling of sugar to bring the flavor to the epitome of strawberry-ness, the pinnacle of fruit. It took no effort at all to mash the berries before the cup after cup of sugar was stirred in. Then the slow heating, stirring so it didn't scorch, waiting until it had boiled long enough to sheet off the spoon. That was the tricky part to learn. No store-bought Sure Gel for Grandma, no. You learned to see and feel the moment when the sugar and the natural pectin from the berries joined together just right so that the jam gelled as it cooled, so that it glistened in the rows of jars like liquefied rubies.
Hm, I wonder if I have any strawberry jam downstairs. If I do I know it was made with Sure Gel because I never did learn to cook it long enough for it to gel on it's own. I know that, up in Heaven, Grandma shakes her head every time I make jam. *sigh* I do other things right though, really I do.
I learned an important lesson today--Do NOT put your camera into the same pocket you just put three cherry tomatoes into. Write that down.
--Barbara
This afternoon my list of "have to do today" opened up so I dialed up the 5 hours of nature sounds on my Kindle (just in case my muse came for an extended visit), unlimbered my Alphasmart, dug out the last 2 chapters of The Seaview and the scene I was aiming for, and got to putting letters together to make words. Real words that turned into sentences and then arranged themselves into paragraphs. Lo and behold, within an hour I had 3 printed pages (just over 1000 words) that segued nicely into the scene I wanted it to. Made me feel like a real writer.
DS and I swapped cars last week so I could get some work done on my little red HHR and I decided that I'll keep it and let him use the big van which will be much better for beer keg hauling and other brewery and parent-y type stuff. Plus there's a DVD player in the second row of seats in the van that should make extended trips a lot more bearable for passengers big and small. So I spent an hour this morning rearranging the junk I keep in there, making sure I had an umbrella handy, putting the basket of reusable grocery bags back on the passenger side floor, making room for my farmer's market basket and straw hat in the back back, and reconfiguring the box of grandkid entertainments (2 knitted owls, a stuffed gorilla eating a banana, lap blankets, and books) that stays in the car. It wasn't until I got the HHR back that I realized how much too big the van felt to me. I enjoyed being up higher but didn't enjoy the vast emptiness around me.
I made the best stuff for supper. It's Jumbo Shrimp with Cuban-Style Black Beans from a
WW cookbook and it's so good. Since WW made over 200 foods zero points the points per serving have gone from 10 to 2. !!!!! I know. You saute an onion, then stir in garlic, diced peppers (I use bell instead of jalapeno; it's what I have), salt, 1/2# of peeled and deveined shrimp. Once the shrimp are opaque you add sugar free orange marmalade, a bit of chicken broth (water with a dab of granules, I'm not opening a can or carton for 1 Tablespoon) and some cilantro. And that's it. You divide it in half and I squirt some green sriracha on mine to spice it up because I left out the jalapeno. Mmm, delicious. Now I have some left for tomorrow. Lucky me! (BTW, I was halfway through the serving before I thought to take a picture; a serving is a lot)
I got the heel flap knitted, the heel turned, the gusset stitches picked up, and now I'm decreasing down to the original number of stitches for the long slog of round and round foot knitting. I'm not a fan of pink, we all know that, but I find I like this combo of gray, yellow, pink, and a kind of lilac-y pink. It's a sock, it'll do its job.
On my short erranding round today I detoured out to our storage locker to survey the contents. I'm determined to sell what will never come back into the house, toss the trash (like the mattress and box springs that have been there for years and I am certain have become a complex of mouse condos), and bring home a carefully curated selection of pieces. I'm tired of us paying $66 a month for it too. Think what a nice bump that sixty-six bucks will make in our savings account. (money in instead of out, gotta love it) I'm seriously considering keeping the cherry drop-leaf dining table that Grandpa made in addition to the walnut writing desk & chair he built and the maple cedar/hope chest (he called it a "despair barrel") he made me that I'm definitely keeping. Is anybody in the market for a pair of genuine late-1960s early-1970s era electric fondue pots (one avocado and one flame red) complete with cookbook, sectioned plates, and fondue forks? I know where you can find some, cheap.
Look what bloomed! It's a stargazer lily I found hiding behind some coleus when I went out to water across the front of the house. The stake for the lily had fallen down so I pushed it back into the ground and then tied up the lily stalk. Evidently I brushed one of the anthers (that's where the pollen is) with my left eyebrow and carried the orange smudge around with me all day until our renter stopped over this evening and asked what that orange stuff was. Shows how often I look at myself in the mirror.
July 18--Roman, late Republic or early Empire, Necklace, 1st Century A.D. Damien recognized the necklace. He had seen it, or one exactly like it, in the museum in Naples. He remembered it because of the large Baroque pearls that alternated with emeralds on the woven gold band.
And that's when I fell asleep. I had a cracking good idea too but those few sentences were all I managed to scribble. One of these nights I'm going to write more than a lead in. Finally, I don't know if you can make it out but there's a hummingbird way up in the top of the apple tree. See the tiny little bird shape in the middle? When the Two Stooges built the fence a couple years ago they butchered the apple tree where it got in their way and evidently compacted the soil around it enough to kill the tree top. Anyway, I saw the hummer on the feeder and just as I got ready to take its picture up into the tree it flew. But I could still see it so I'm showing it to you.
--Barbara
Aqua fitness was fun last night but the pool water was ice cold, colder than Lake Michigan according to KW, but once we started jumping around it was bearable. There were probably 40 of us in the pool. The instructor was in the pool too so all the splashing of water and chat of the surrounding people made it hard to know what to do but we swung our arms and flung our legs this way and that and by the time a half hour had passed KW and I waded out. I could tell my calves weren't going to be happy and, boy howdy, I was right. Crawling out of bed this morning was a treat but I did my daily yoga and stretched out those complaining muscles and feel fine now. Next week will be better.
On my way home from the pool I passed our pitiful raspberry canes and found this lone ripe one that I picked to take to Durwood today.
I'm sure by now you've gotten the hint that I had to move Durwood into a nursing home ("Baba lives at the nurse house," says OJ) at the beginning of the month. His needs have surpassed my ability to take care of him and keep him safe. Sad but true. DD noticed that there's a birdfeeder outside his window so I took some seed with me on Sunday and within 15 minutes we'd attracted this squirrel. It didn't eat all the seed so, so far so good, and I dug out another hummingbird feeder to take the next time I go, along with a spare crook. It's a nice place, barely a mile from home, and I'm in charge of doing his laundry and making sure that his little bottles of gin stay filled. His doc wrote him an Rx for a daily martini and they're very good about delivering it around 4 PM along with a small glass of ice--and his pills. I'm slowly getting used to my new normal.
Speaking of hummingbirds look what sat long enough for a photo this morning. Gotcha.
This afternoon while doing laundry I sewed. I'm calling this the Two Brown Linens Shirt no. 1 from 100 Acts of Sewing. One of these days I'll find a length of fabric in the stash big enough to make the front and the back the same. Or maybe I'll decide to lay two different fabrics on top of one another and have them be side by side instead of front and back... Hmm.
Last night as I closed the shades I glanced at the sky and saw the crescent moon so even though I was staggering I was so tired I grabbed the camera and went out to take its picture. You'd think my zodiac sign was Cancer, aka Moon Child, instead of Virgo, which I suspect means persnickety or pain in the arse.
I didn't write the prompt last night. I fell asleep in the couch before 9 o'clock and as soon as I'd taken the moon picture I lay down and that was that. Maybe tonight I'll manage to pick up my pencil.
--Barbara
I got a call from T & BD this morning saying that they were in Door County picking sweet Bing cherries and did I want some. They said that the trees were so full that they could stand in one place and pick a pail full barely moving their feet. I said I'd like a few. Well, they come with a huge bag of cherries and since they aren't pie cherries I didn't think I'd be able to eat them all before they went bad so they left me a bowlful. I think Durwood and I can make these beauties disappear.
DD and I were sitting at the table this morning when I glanced out to see a hummingbird at the nectar feeder. Do you think I could get the camera up and running in time? Of course not, but she saw it too so it counts.
I picked the first two strawberry tomatoes this morning and DD took them to Durwood. He always gets the first few tomatoes all to himself. Later on when the harvest is bigger I'll lay claim to a few of them but he loves them so he gets the first ones and doesn't have to share.
In the afternoon I knitted the heel flap of the pink & gray anklet and turned the heel so the next thing to be done is pick up the gusset stitches and then start decreasing down to the stitches needed for the foot. I also worked a couple rows on the back of the Montparnasse cardi but it doesn't look all that different so you're spared a photo.
DS, DIL1, LC and OJ took DD and I out for lunch today. We went to Kroll's which is a local favorite for juicy hamburgers topped with a pat of butter and served on a hard roll. We all ordered battered and deep fried cheese curds too. Nothing like a bit of fat, cheese, and fat for lunch. Mm, I can feel my arteries hardening even as we speak. I do believe I will try to hover over the scale come Monday morning weigh in time. Or maybe I'll just draw a line through the past couple weeks and ease my way back on track once I get used to my new lifestyle.
July 14--Maya Civilization, Bonampak Site, Mexico, Dressing Ceremony of High Priest. He started naked, his brown skin shiny with scented oils. One by one attendants brought the trappings of his position, his ceremonial robes. As they lowered the feather mantle to his shoulders he thought of all the birds that gave their lives to make it. "Oh, Great Mother," he said, beginning the ritual, "we are grateful for your generosity..."
Once again that's as far as I got before sleep overtook me. DD goes home tomorrow, too soon, but I'm so glad that she came. I needed to see her and she needed to see both me and Durwood. Tough times all around.
--Barbara
I walked into the kitchen about an hour ago and gaped at the color of the light outside so I grabbed my camera and scampered out the front door to find the sunset. There it was hiding behind the neighbor's house but I managed to capture a bit of it before it faded.
Last night I finished the right front of the Montparnasse Eco Cardi, got it soaked, spun most of the water out, and pinned it to blocking squares to dry.
Then I got out the red Eco yarn and cast on the back. That piece starts with a single stitch, then you cast on a few stitches at the beginning of each row until you have the number your size calls for. Now that it's as wide as it needs to be the decreasing toward the neck begins on the next row. Woohoo, downhill!
While DD visited with Durwood I sat and got the "even it up" anklet started and most of the cuff knitted. I'm kind of disappointed that the gray and yellow keep meeting up as does the pink and pinkish. I have a couple more rounds of cuff to knit and then it's on to the heel. Another Eye of Partridge heel, I think.
Today DD is 37 years old (how can that be?) so yesterday I baked a Wacky Cocoa Cake from a recipe in an ancient Hershey's Cocoa cookbook I got, probably in the late 60s. Anyway, you make the cake with oil, baking soda, and vinegar instead of butter and eggs. I stirred up some powdered sugar glaze but once again put in too much milk so it ran right off the cake to pool on the cake plate. One of these days I'll make glaze that sticks. Today was NOT that day.
July 13--Edgar Degas, Jockeys on Horseback Before Distant Hills. They braided themselves together like bright silk and brown hemp fibers. The brightly clad riders on the mostly brown horses milled around on top of the rise across the valley from the small collection of buildings that were the village of St. Etienne. Old men sat in the shade and debated which horse had better breeding, which was fastest, and which jockey had the courage and stamina to bring a winner back to the valley.
I thought Degas only painted ballerinas. This was a nice surprise. DD arrived this morning for a short visit. It's great to have her here even for a couple days.
--Barbara
A couple weeks ago I received the gift of a handmade book. It's a treasure. LC made it for me all by herself. She put my initials on the cover twice--"BM" for my name and "GM" for Grandma even though she calls me Meemaw--and the initials are backwards as is the book. She's left-handed and writing right to left and the way pages go takes time to work out. Inside is a picture of the Cat in the Hat and it says on the facing page, "The Cat in the Hat mad a mese." (psst, she read it to me and it says, "made a mess.") I love it, exclaimed over it, and think it's brilliant. She's 4 years old. "Four and a HALF, Meemaw." I can't wait for more.
