You're Doing It Wrong

Nice weekend. We kept Thanksgiving dinner simple. Priscilla came over. We had salmon and pumpkin pie (yes, punky) and some other things. It was all delicious.

I spent most of the weekend hunched over the computer working on my project for my writing class. The idea is to have a first draft by the end of class (Dec 14) and I was a little misdirected when I started so I had to backtrack and scrap about 10 pages and before that I was tweaking with the outline forever so I was already way behind but I cranked all weekend and I’m on page 51 which might be only halfway but I feel pretty good about it — not that it’s brilliant writing. It’s very first drafty – but I feel like I’m moving forward. I started my writing the minute I got up (at 6am) and I didn’t stop to eat or make a hot drink or any other distraction until after Noon each day. Yesterday I didn’t even eat until 3:30pm. Not wildly fun but the method works for me. By the afternoon I was fried and tried to do things that didn’t involve computers or reading.

We saw two movies: Frida which was fabulous — I liked it a lot more than I expected to. I thought the story was more of a bummer and it was going to a long tortured artist movie with her throwing crockery at her self-absorbed husband. She was tortured and things were thrown but really, it was good. We also saw Solaris which I didn’t hate. I’m not sure what I think about it. It was an interesting movie and which dealt with some heavy topics but I’m not sure the ending worked for me. I also watched my tape of Skinwalkers which was fabulous.

I’m going to try to crank out a quick Holiday Newsletter this week — we’ll see if I can cram in the time.

Still very busy. Yesterday I took a short break from the writing routine to rake leaves — my 15 minute gardener routine. It would have been nice to do more out there but, oh well, can’t do everything. I also tried to discourage the lovely grass that’s growing up in my planting beds. Our “lawn” is a patch of weeds and moss and our planting beds are nice healthy grass. I don’t understand.

Very quiet, simple Thanksgiving planned. We’re going non-traditional and Bob has been telling people it’s the “anti-Thanksgiving” and I have nothing against Thanksgiving. I love Thanksgiving and will miss having all my favorite holiday foods. However, I do not want to spend the entire day in the kitchen so I opted for the alternate menu: salmon, wilted spinach salad, wild rice and Priscilla fruit salad thing. Plus I’m making a pumpkin pie.

This weekend we had a group here for Walker’s birthday and for the two night Yonder run. Everybody had a great time. Walker arrived on Friday and she and Bob checked out the show the first night. On Saturday Sherwood, Collette, Erin and Eddie came down from Seattle and we had snacks and then took off for Ringlers where we met a big group of Walker’s festival friends. We had food and refreshing adult beverages and then went to the show at the Crystal. We left in shifts — first Sherwood, Collette and Eddie who didn’t even make it through the first set. Erin and I left at the set break and had a wild adventure on the Fremont Bridge coming home when some SUV going about 70 mph couldn’t decide whether he wanted I5 South or I5 North and lost control and skidded all they way across 5 lanes ending up facing us in the hazard lane right next to us. Amazingly, no one was hurt and no other cars were hit. The SUV got a little crunch on the passenger side front bumper but he drove off, presumably needing a fresh pair of underwear, and the rest of the us drove off too. In the morning I made breakfast strata from a Cooks Illustrated recipe — it had eggs and spinach and bread and it was incredibly yummy. I also made pumpkin scones which everybody liked. A super fun weekend.

New Breakfast Drink

I invented a new breakfast drink. In a blender you put milk, pumpkin, honey, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and ground cloves — whip it up and then pour into a saucepan and heat. Pour into mug, drink. I’m sure it’s nutritious too — I had it two days in a row (because I had pumpkin left over from the scones) and both days it gave me a sort of rush.

Other

I started my Xmas shopping yesterday and got a big headstart and it was nice because it wasn’t cold and it wasn’t raining while I was running around back and forth to the car. I also FINALLY got myself a pair of new shoes — my old ones were completely worn down. The furnace isn’t working this morning. I’m not sure how long it’s been out . I guess since sometime last night. Not good. I’m back to my writing project starting tomorrow so will be scarce.

This writing class I’m taking is killing me. It’s causing me a great deal of aggravation — not the writing itself but the endless negotiating to carve writing time out of my regular life. My days off I do okay — except that none of the usual “day off” chores and projects get done — but during the week it’s like pulling teeth to get an hour here or 45 minutes there. So on the one hand I feel like all the non-writing stuff is piling up and/or falling through the cracks while on the writing I can’t build any momentum and get any feeling of accomplishment. I get frustrated with all people who rely on what I do for them. It’s not the best way to live and I don’t have any solutions right now.

Today I cooked the pumpkin. Bob took pictures of me with it in the backyard and then we made of movie of me processing it into pumpkin food. My soup recipe called for 4 cups and my bread recipe called for 1 1/2 cups so I was a little worried that I’d get a least 6 cups out of the thing. Turns out I got about 26 cups. I am set for pumpkin for this lifetime and the next.

The Cinderella pumpkin smelled great inside. Not that gaggy smell of carving pumpkins. It had a sort of honey smell. And it tasted great just cooked — while I was pureeing it — and it took about 7 batches to run it all through — I was licking pumpkin off my fingers and it was yummy.

The soup came out delicious. You saute and then puree onion and ginger and season with cinnamon and nutmeg and lemon zest, there are other ingredients too, broth and milk and tomatoes. I’m making the bread tomorrow. The recipe says 5 hours so I figure it will take me all day. It’s a yeasted bread. Then I’ll make pumpkin scones for the girls next weekend and a pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving and I’ll still have more pumpkin in the freezer waiting for some other pumpkin thing.

Hi there all you loyal blog readers, and I think there are almost 3 of you, but I’m afraid my postings are going to be even more scarce for awhile. I’m taking this writing class and I need to use my computer time to work on my writing project and not fritter it away on email and newsgroups and blogging — which is a great time suck in case you haven’t noticed. ahem.

I’ve been taking notes and thinking I’d get over here all week except I’d always be getting “five last minutes” in on my project and would run out of time. One thing I wanted to do was a Maddox inspired rant on some entities that were really giving me a major rash last week — those being federal agencies and banks — but my rage has passed and I don’t see how it would advance my position to put all this hostility and bad energy on my blogsite. I’ll just give you the short version which is that a majority of employees of such entities have large logs stuffed up their butts. I do happen to know personally of federal employees who actually give a crap and yay for them. And the people at BofA where we do our business banking are all super nice and friendly but I think some people get a little high on a teensy bit of power and then they don’t want to do anything except tell people that they are wrong and or invent ways to waste time and energy. Or just act like it’s a major imposition when you call and ask for some information. Another tactic at federal agencies is to tell you to call someone else. And that person is out of the office for the rest of the week. And finally they get some intern to call you back and this person is young and confident and heady with power from working at a federal agency and also as clueless as you could possibly be and still be breathing.

I can’t remember if I put anything here about my beautiful pumpkin I got at the farmer’s market a couple of weeks ago. It’s a cinderella pumpkin and so beautiful it should be in a museum. I’m trying to get Bob to take a picture of me with it. I was going to do it this weekend but ran out of time so next weekend I’m going to eat it. We’re going to have pumpkin soup and pumpkin bread and other pumpkin things — depending on how much pumpkin comes out of it when it’s been cooked.

Finally, new Simpsons tonight.

I thought there was a big gas war going on in our neighborhood since that new 76 station opened up across from the Arco station. It seemed like every week the Arco station dropped another two cents and then the 76 station dropped another two cents. 76 never meets Arco prices, but it always seems to stay within 2 cents. Last night I noticed Arco dropped down to $1.15 and I thought, wow, this price war should be on the news or something. But I got my oil changed today and on my way back across town I drove by another Arco with $1.15 so at least in Vancouver, Arco has cheap gas.

When I got my hair done last time I looked at Vegetarian Times while I was sitting under the dryer and there were about 4 articles I wanted to read more carefully so I picked one up at the newsstand. It’s amazing (in an irritating way) how organic and soy foods are so heavily marketed now. I thought about subscribing to the magazine because I like a steady flow of new recipes coming in all the time, but this magazine is written as if for 1st graders and people returning from a long trip off planet who have never heard of vegetarians before. And I tried a recipe tonight that said took 30 minutes or less to make and actually took 60 minutes or more to make and I’m not too impressed and not sure we’re even going to eat the leftovers much less try the recipe again.

Another busy weekend, two in a row. Mom came up on Thursday and we spent Friday running out to Bob’s Redmill Store and Powell’s Books and then came home and cooked to get ready for a family gathering. On Saturday I took her to Lillian Pitt’s Gallery and Trader Joes.

Saturday night Mom went out with Priscilla and Bob and I saw Cheese at University of Portland. It was an awesome show. I had a great time and danced my socks off and I would love to provide a more comprehsive review except I never know the names of the songs and I don’t have time to track down someone else’s review right now. I can tell you that it was a way more rockin’ show than I’ve ever heard (in my measly 5 engagements) — but they played a song called “Howard” which apparently was one of the ones I liked.

I’m working on stuff for my class this Saturday and trying not to get too distracted (ha!). For your entertainment, please check out these Weird New Zealand Dog Food Ads.

I saw that Anne Lamott was at the Jantzen Beach bookstore while I was in Tacoma — figures.

I noticed one of the buttons on my Ann Taylor sweater was broken. You know when you buy certain kinds of clothes and they come with spare thread or buttons and it seems like such a great idea except where do you put them so when you need them you can find them? I have one main button area but could not find an Ann Taylor button and I looked in two alternate spots and decided to settle for a different button, same size, rationalizing that you would never really notice. Wrong, it looks totally stupid and then this morning I found the Ann Taylor extra button area, so I do have the right button. Now I have to get motivated to take off the wrong one and sew the right one on.

And while I’m avoiding sewing projects, I finally decided to re-hem these black pants I have (aren’t they all black? I can hear you asking) because they have always been a wee bit too short and that old sixth grade “are you expecting a flood” humiliation would come back to me whenever I put them on and I would find something else to wear.

While I was looking at my notes for today’s blog, I found some old notes that I think are from Wintergrass (Jan or Feb 02) which was in Tacoma at the Sheraton, the scene of this writers conference I just endured. The first note says “great food is a Fife landmark — you get the feeling Fife is stretching for landmarks.” (Fife is an aesthetically weak strip of highway lined with rundown motels with weekly rates not far from downtown Tacoma). The second note says “your bluegrass musician has two kinds of outfits: the sharp-dressed man and variations of the over-sized Hawaiian shirt and jeans.”

I’m collecting notes for an eventual bio overhaul. This weekend I wrote that I don’t like to drink hot drinks out of small cups and I don’t like being asked questions I don’t have the answer too. Like when my Dad visits and he asks me things like, “Why is the doorknob broken?” “Why does your neighbor have a cement mixer on his lawn?” “Who’s motorcycle is that racing up and down the block?” This weekend it was things like “what’s going to be served at the banquet?” “what happened to the poetry workshop?” and “has anyone seen ______?” (Fill in the name of a person we really need to find.)

I guess I skipped blogging about the conference this weekend. Let’s just say the organization was pretty loose and everyone had ample opportunity to adapt in the moment. It was a huge personal growth weekend.