You're Doing It Wrong

A couple of months ago I went to a book swap at Camille’s and I found this gem. I don’t like to collect things, especially things with recipes because I already have too many, but every once in awhile I find an old cookbook with awesome graphics and goofy recipes that I have to take home with me.

This one is copyright 1961 and not only is the party book fun but inside there were clipped magazine recipes and a carefully printed letter on lined newsprint from a youngster that is hilarious. I should have scanned it but I didn’t think of it.

The party book has ideas for all kinds of gatherings, Arbor Day parties, gender specific birthday parties, Mother’s Day. It’s the book that gave me the idea for getting into molded foods.

Speaking of molded foods, in yesterday’s Oregonian there’s a recipe for a molded food with strawberries, unflavored gelatin and whipped cream. I’d like to link the recipe but I can’t find it right now. The recipe says to use ramekins but I’m going to use some of my fancy molds. I’ll take pictures.

I’m trying to cut back on my recipe clipping because it’s getting ridiculous. Well, it’s been ridiculous for quite some time. But look at these recipes for grilled bread. Every summer I vow to master the grill and every summer it’s one of those things I never manage to get to. I’m going to clip it anyway because grilled bread would be delicious.

I spent my entire weekend chained to the computer working on a new story. It has a hunting scene and this is the hunting camp I was visualizing. It’s at the trailhead to Salmon Summit in the Six Rivers National Forest.

I drive to the office once or twice a week and the Tribe validates my parking. Today there was a new kid and he asked me for .95¢. No, I said. The validation covers it.

No, he said. It only covers two hours, ten dollars.

I think you’re wrong, I said. I should mention that he was a painfully charming ESL person.

No, he insisted. I’m not wrong.

I gave him a dollar because someone was waiting and it seemed petty to dither about $1. But give me the receipt, I said. I’m going to call over in the morning.

They gave you two hour validation, he said again.

They, my ass, I was the one with the validation stamp. I validated for four hours. That’s what I told him.

Oh, he said. It was too late. He’d already rung me up and taken my dollar.

You were right, he said as I drove away.

This morning I woke up early, way earlier than I wanted to get up. But since I was awake, I opened the blinds and made a cup of tea and settled in for a half hour of reading before I started my day.

There was something weird with the light and I turned around and saw this black balloon bobbing outside the bedroom window.

Since I watch way too much TV, my first thought was, “Omigod, we’ve been targeted by the black balloon killer.”

I got up for a better look and thought maybe all our neighbors had black balloons. Maybe we were supposed to be honoring fallen Vancouverites for some sort of special occasion.

Only our house had a black balloon but it was windy so it seemed like a strange task that someone would put a balloon outside our window so I guess it escaped from a party somewhere and ended up in our yard.

In this shot you can see it’s attached to another phallic balloon. I don’t know what was going on in our neighborhood last night but I guess we missed something.

I shut the blinds. I said, “I don’t want that balloon looking at us.”

I’ve had this recipe sitting on my kitchen counter for a couple weeks. I had some beet greens that needed attention and this looked like fun. But then by the time I rounded up the hominy the beet greens were long gone.

This morning I went to the farmer’s market for beets and cilantro. So now I had everything I needed and then the recipe disappeared. At least we have the internet. The soup was good but a tad bland but a scoop of spicy salsa verde, also from the farmer’s market made it perfect.

The photo shows my farmer’s market flowers and my recipe folder. That isn’t my recipe file — just the stuff I’ve clipped in the past several weeks. I always clip way more than I make. It’s like the book section. Every time I read it I mark about three books to read but since I’m currently reading about one book every 2 months, I’ll never be able to keep up.

On the way home from the market we saw huge black billowing smoke coming from the train station.

“Should we go look?” I asked Bob. “YES,” he said. So drove down there and it was the recycling center. No one seemed alarmed so after about three minutes of admiring the stinky fire we turned around and then the world’s longest freight train had to go by on another track and we had to sit there for about 15 minutes and since I wanted to get home, I wasn’t amused.

I finished the first draft of my story this afternoon. It isn’t pretty and there’s a scene that goes on way too long but at least I have something to work with. We’ve just finished our roasted garlic cilantro broth beet greens and hominy soup and it’s time for some mindless TV before bed.

Where’s the “make your scones look pretty” photo tutorial?

Sometimes I worry about my inability to deal with things.

This morning I planned to go offsite for writing. I packed up my Clarion West bag and headed for the local coffee shop. It was jam-packed to the rafters with soccer moms and golf dads and loud like a high school gymnasium. I stood at the door and told myself to buck-up but there was not even a desperation seat available.

I got back in the car and headed home because no one was there. Not like I didn’t have a decent writing space. But then I decided to try another spot and in the midst of this revelation I got caught up in some bizarre traffic hell in the middle of my own backwoods piece of suburbia. Where were all these cars coming from? To give myself a teeny out, I am hormonal.

I went home. I hadn’t eaten anything or had my tea because I was looking forward to a tall Chai and a baked treat, something I rarely have for breakfast because I usually eat boring healthy things like fruit and yogurt. But now that I was home I didn’t want boring healthy stuff so I dug around in the freezer for the last Trader Joe’s Mac & Cheese because that sounded really good. Only it wasn’t there because someone else had eaten it.

So now I was all in a snit again so I decided to bake scones. Then I ate three. I showed them.

Now I was all ploddy with scones and grumpy and this entire day for writing seemed like a wash. But I sat down at the computer anyway and Kira was online and we rallied for a writing date and I stayed in the chair until 6pm when I finally stopped for dinner. So a potentially crap day, totally salvaged.

Yesterday a ginormous storm zoomed through town. I kinda knew something was coming but it was weird sitting in the backyard and seeing the trees suddenly bend over sideways. The photo in no way captures the chaos.

I have been terrified of thunder and lightening storms, as in trembling under the comforter weeping, until fairly recently in my adult life. There were numerous times when some clear headed individual would take me aside and tell me how ridiculous my fear was and try to explain to me what thunder is all about. I didn’t care if it was unicorns bumping into candy canes. I still thought it was scary.

I’m not sure what changed that but now I kind of like them as long as I’m not in the middle of a field standing next to a tree made of metal. We didn’t get hit too bad at my house but the wind was crazy and we had one good rumble that went on and on while I looked out the window. After it was over I went into the backyard and found rose petals strewn everywhere and two of my tomatoes keeled over on their sides. I talked to them like they were injured family, “Hang on!” and I re-staked them and I think they’re going to make it. I’ll put them in cages later this weekend.

It was nice having such a long warm, dry streak but it’s also nice having the yard watered by itself.

Photo courtesy of arrangingmatches

I actually like our office but I’m still going to complain about it.

One of the elevators in our building is out again. I swear this place is held together with chewing gum. According to our tenant info packet it was built less than twenty years ago which isn’t such a long time. But it feels like Logan’s Run meaning like it was someone’s idea of what would look futuristic but now, less than twenty years later, that curved hallway with the slick white walls looks drab and silly. Maybe I’ve got it wrong because there’s something else here in the supporting materials about art deco.

Regardless I’m certain the elevators were salvaged from some ancient heap of debris and on a good day fulfill the bare minimum requirements for elevator safety. The elevator doors either close on you hard enough to make you yelp, or they stay open forever so that you and the strangers who are hoping to get down to the lobby in one piece get to share this endless awkward moment where you start to wonder if you’re being punkd.

The sent us a notice recently about the building maintenance costs going down. At the same time the soap in the restroom started to come out of the dispenser like slightly sudsy dishwater and the paper towels seemed to become flimsier. I wonder where else they’re cutting back.

I finally tried a bánh mì. I think I heard about it in the NYT but then I asked Matt (the guy in the photo – for some reason I don’t have very many classic Matt photos on my page) and he made it sound like this sandwich would change my life. I had it in mind except nowhere I go to eat has them. The food cart page said I could get one at Huongs so I ran over there at lunch today to check it out.

That sandwich peeled my face off. I don’t even know if it’s a “good one” as judged by those in the know but it was tough not to hoover it in three bites. And it was only $3. How do they make money?

Madison

Apparently I’m never going to manage to do a good blogpost or finish another book ever again.

Pumpkins, ready to live outside.

Technology and me – why can’t we just get along? I had all these great photos on my desktop that I was going to write a post about but then my computer tricked me into restarting it and they all folded up and returned to the magical land where they live before I click on them. I’m not in the mood to dig around for them again right now. I have another technology situation that I’m too embarrassed to write about but it’s hard not understanding how to do things.

I spent a huge part of my weekend trying to wrangle this story that just can’t figure out what it’s going to be. I discard 500 words for every 1000 I write. I thought I knew exactly what I was doing today and I wrote about 1000 words that barely introduce the scene I thought I was going to zip through.

I’m going to keep flogging on it. I think if I could just get to the end I’d know how to do the middle better. Maybe next weekend I’ll run off to a secret bunker with no Internet and see if that speeds up the process.

We got our furnace replaced last fall and for the last couple of days we’ve used the air conditioner with the new fan (or whatever, I don’t know how it works). I like having a cool house but that thing will blow your hair back if you stand too close. I guess we did good with our purchase. Walker makes fun of me because I’m always cold but I had to put sweat pants on just so I could sit at my desk.

I love it with reservations.

Stand In The Place Where You Live

I wanted to do side-by-side photos last winter but I couldn’t find my sunny photo. Yesterday I got my sunny photo.

Also yesterday I noticed the wasps are building a nest right next to the front door. Why do they do that? I realize wasps serve a purpose even though I don’t like them. But they’re always building something right by a door. Front door, back door, shed door. Bug spray is coming out.

Finally: NYT — I thought you were hurting for subscribers. At this point, we’ve had four telephone conversations and you’re still DOING IT WRONG.

Photo courtesy of atul666. Thank you for CC licensed photos.

Over the weekend I mentioned the Portland tram and the group was having trouble with a visual so here is a photo.

One of our neighbors has a yipey dog. I am especially aware of this now that we can keep the windows open and I can lounge around outside. That dog yipes constantly without rest. I bet it yipes in its sleep.

Purely from an evolutionary perspective: how have these dogs managed to stay alive this long? Why would anyone want to keep something around that makes that much noise? After about 30 minutes I want to kill it and eat it. And I’m sure there are people with less patience than I have.