Too much sugar for a dime

The Hours of No Power

Tropical Storm Lee gave us a little Hawaiian wave on his (or her?) way to disintegration, and knocked down power lines all over the county. From what I read in the blogosphere, power outages of wide-ranging etiologies were ubiquitous on the planet today, from Alaska to Pennsylvania and beyond.

Buck and I read, wrote, snoozed and talked a lot about the great kids (of all generations) in our family. Oh, if they could have heard how we did go on about their supercalifragilisticexpialidocious qualities, they would never have another humble moment. So, please, don't tell any of them: not Adele, or Richard W., or Sharon, or Richard G., or Garrett, Krista, Ariel, Andie, April, Alex, Julia, Jenny, Jorja or Chance.

I sat outside late this afternoon and was lucky to be on hand for that magic moment when the wind turned, the air cooled, and the sun broke through. Glorious.

I began to hum the grand Shaker Tune, "Simple Gifts," and thought you all might enjoy this rendition, by Blast!

 

Tail End of a Longleaf Summer

I went walking at precisely the wrong time today. Noon. The sweltering sun at its zenith. And yet. Buck had taken a few minutes before lunch to work out on the weight bench. I was frustrated with my lack of focus, and told him I was going down to the gate.  We agreed we would take a swim and have some lunch when I got back.

Approaching the stream bed, two graceful whitetail deer woke me up to my life as they leapt from woods to woods, across the gravel road. Thanks to them, I got out of my stuffy head and into the moment.

All the other scuppernongs (fox grapes) are gone, but this natural arbor was too high for the deer to reach (or me, either). They are beautiful.

This grotesque black mushroom is magnificently horrible.I poked it with a stick and ugly little beetle-ish bugs crawled out.

Buck and I kept seeing this flash of white at the edge of the woods out back. I finally walked out there today. Don't know the name, but it sure is pretty.

The American Beauty (French mulberry) is a harbinger of Fall. Seems like it has begun to bloom early. Okay by me.

Yesterday, I led Maggie out the front door for a slow, short walk around the driveway to woods edge. She hobbled, then warmed to it, and walked out from the border of grass into the recently bush-hogged brush, where her good nose picked up a scent of something that interested her. I walked quickly over when I realized she had picked up speed and was about to dive into the woods.

"Maggie, no! Stop!" I shouted. Last thing I wanted was to lose her in the thick brush. Too late. She was gone.

And then, only about 6 feet from me, a tiny spotted fawn sprinted across the clearing. Maggie was in luke-warm but very interested pursuit. The baby bleated, "aahck!" It sounded like a peacock. I ran, grabbed Maggie by the collar and began walking her back toward the house. She strained against my hold, but never barked. She just made gutteral huffing sounds and watched the fawn. It had run into the plastic sliding doors of the pool house. I looked and saw that it was pressed against the plastic, all brown spots, toothpick legs and big eyes. Thunderclaps spiced the air and big rain drops began to fall. The baby cried out again.

I got Maggie back into the house. She was so charged up, she ran back into the bedroom to see if she could see the deer from the glass doors there, but the angle was wrong. Finally, she came back to the foyer and stood staring out the front door, breathing heavily.

By this time, the sky had fallen. There was thunder and heavy rain.

Buck and I put Maggie into the garage and drove to the grocery store to pick up supper supplies. The baby was gone.

This morning, I saw a big doe patrolling the area. Mama. Good.

As for Maggie, she had a big adventure. The vet has approved an aspirin regimen to go along with her twice daily doses of SAMe and Cosequin. Her metabolism has settled back down and the pain seems to have ameliorated for now, thank heavens. It was a joy to see her get all revved up, even though the baby deer was scared half to death. Maggie wasn't baring teeth or growling. She was just curious and, for a moment, felt the thrill of youth again.

Yesterday. Today. Good days.

A Girl's Gotta Eat

An earthquake in Washington, D.C. Not now, Lord, please, we have a son and two granddaughters living in a high-rise in Alexandria, Virginia. Richard and Krista work in tall buildings, and Ariel an architecture student at Virginia Tech just down the road. They are a long-distance commute family at the moment, with mom, Sharon, working and living in Pensacola along with youngest daughter, soccer-playing/International Baccalaureate high school junior, Ariel. Sharon's flying to her D.C. chicks and hubby this morning for a combination of work-related training and weekend play.

Various branches of the family connected via Facebook and determined everybody's fine. I loved Krista's status post:  "we're all ok! ariel's back in class; dad's biking home and i'm sitting here in the apartment stress-snacking!"  

Thank God, I was apparently born with a cast iron stomach. Despite fretting over the old dog, keeping my seat belt on while riding the roller-coaster market, kids suddenly in an earthquake, hurricanes revving up, and the unpleasantness of stepping on a great big still-alive cockroach when I was sorting laundry this morning and hearing that awful "click" sound under my foot, a girl's gotta eat.

Soy-and-Ginger-Marinated Pork Chops, Baby Bok Choy with Chile, Garlic, and Ginger, and Herb and Scallion Rice

This looks like a meal that will help me keep my strength up! In fact, I know it will, since I fixed it last week. Looks like a plan for tonight unless we get inspired and go down to Maria's Seafood for a mess of shrimp.

I got all three recipes from a September, 2011 Martha Stewart Living magazine. They were printed on little index-type cards that you can rip right out, which I did. These are keepers.

Buck looked at the rice and said, "The rice is green."

"Yep," I said.

Then he ate it, every bite, and asked if I would make it again soon.

City of Free Hugs

This is a random view of New York City quickly snapped as we were ascending from La Guardia yesterday en route to an unexpectedly long layover at the Atlanta airport.

The Delta flight left La Guardia late. Despite doing a pretty decent imitation of marathoners in training, we made it to the Pensacola flight’s gate about 30 seconds after they had  closed the door, prematurely in our opinion since it was still 10 minutes before flight time. So we had the crown-biting pleasure of watching out the window while the plane they wouldn’t let us on (for which we had boarding passes and were only late because their other flight was late) sat on the tarmac for another 15 minutes.

Ah, the delights of air travel.

I called Rhonda at the Lucky Dog Boutique and Spa to give her the sad news that we wouldn’t be getting back to Pensacola until several hours after they had closed, and so Maggie would have to stay with them another night.

“Is Maggie okay?” I asked in a guilt-ridden-for-having-left-her-at-all voice.

“Maggie?” Rhonda answered in an are-you-kidding voice. “Maggie’s fine. In fact, she just came back inside from a play session with Jasper. He’s younger than Maggie, and a chocolate Lab, too. They’ve gotten to be good friends.”

Who knew Maggie was a cougar in dog’s clothing? Messing with that young stud. Sly old girl. I was impressed.

Buck and I picked Maggie up this morning and cha-ching, everything clicked into perfect balance in my world.

We spent the rest of the day loving up on Maggie, the M-Girl, Li’l Brown Sugar, plus unpacking, swimming, uploading all the photos we both took into the Cloud for safe-keeping.

Posts coming in the next few days about our Times Square experience (think “The Naked Cowboy”), walking through China Town several times, how I no longer deserve to ever write about food again, our visit to Battery Park, Wall Street, the Municipal Archives, and more.

The trip was a sensory extravaganza, even without attending a single show. The city is the show.

Oh, and in case you didn’t know, New York is also the City of Free Hugs.

When The Exercise Says "Write A Letter Of Warning"

Dear ___,

 

 

 

I see it in your eyes: that intersection of inexperience, desire, insecurity and the innate power of being beautiful; an explosive cocktail. You’re going to be in situations that can lead to heartbreak, disaster, or missing the one big entrance-ramp to the destiny of your dreams.

 

Do you understand that this might be your only shot? Sex is fabulous, but never mistake, my darling, it is a loaded gun, and one which sometimes backfires.

 

 

 

I also know there are situations in any young woman’s home which are likely to lead to a screaming fight and a big dramatic scene where the heroine, (you, of course), slams the door and walks out on her parents.

 

 

 

Rough seas ahead. Danger. Warning.

 

You have already decided that no one understands. I saw that in your eyes, too.

 

 

 

 

Don’t go it alone. Talk to me. I won’t judge, but I won’t let you go down a blind alley either, or fail to tell you what I know.

 

 

 

 

Love,

 

 

 

TwitchyB

Common Knowledge

June oyster.

Belly-flopped all night long.

Cruel acrobat.

Oldtimers say "don't eat oysters in months without an R."

I won't forget to remember that ancient wisdom again.

Scamp with Lump Crab and Pinon Couscous

It was a busy day. Buck and I were both running in opposite directions. But the fish I bought from Joe Patti's yesterday was on ice, and there was half a container of jumbo lump crab meat left from our shrimp & crab feast last night.  The scamp was rubbed with olive oil and Cavender's Greek seasoning, plus a lemon squeezed over, then broiled for about ten minutes. The leftover crab was folded into a reduced mixture of butter, lemon juice, and half and half. Couscous and a baby spinach, portabello mushroom salad with a balsamic and dijon vinaigrette completed our supper.

 

But it wasn't quite complete without a scoop of chocolate ice cream with a sprinkle of walnuts (antioxidants with high fiber cholesterol reducers. . . . uh huh).

It All Comes Back

John is a good old boy, and when he is clicking on all cylinders, he can do amazing things with wood. He's a finish carpenter and has been in the house all week. Well, actually, only since Wednesday, but it feels like all week.

Bob wired this whole house, both the old part and the new, all by himself. Seeing him yesterday, memories washed over me like waves of spilled milk. The weeks he spent wiring the new part two years ago was when his boy was sick, his star athlete son about to go to college when the brain seizures began. Buck and I lived in the old part of the house while all the new building was going on, and it just wasn't possible not to hear Bob exhorting, pleading, shouting at the doctors, nurse practitioners, insurance people, or speaking softly to one of his sisters or his mom about his son. We paced the floor with him and shut down the project when he needed to go up to Birmingham, where the whole family ate Thanksgiving dinner with the boy in a conference room at the hospital.

We had our own tragedy during that time, one I still can't write about, and I guess that's why, as soon as the house was 98% complete, we moved in, sent everyone home and locked the gate.

It's a measure of healing perhaps, or strength, or determination -- something -- that John and Bob are back this week to cut in the door (where an outside window used to be) to connect the old dining room to the new kitchen, to replace the old exterior entrance door with an interior full glass door, and to finish putting stained wood trim around the dining room windows.

I thought yesterday we were so exhausted by this process because we're just not accustomed to having people in the house all day, making noise with hammers, saws and drills, and having to talk with them, too, especially Buck, giving instruction and guidance.

That's part of it, sure. But it's the memories that hit you like a ton of bricks. It's the memories.