Camping out

In anticipation of some camping on our vacation, we set up the tent in the backyard today. We bought the tent last year and never used it, and figured that we should give it a trial run. Of course, the kids asked if they could spend the night out there. We just saw them off, each equipped with a sleeping bag, pillow, flashlight, and stuffed animal. Yes, even the 12 year old. We'll see if they last the night...

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This morning

From our front door, about 7:30 AM.

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Meet Buddy

We adopted Buddy from the local animal shelter in the summer of 2005. He was about two years old at the time. He had been returned to the shelter by the people that had adopted him about a year earlier. Based on the bits and pieces of information we got, I'm guessing that there was maybe a divorce or an unexpected move, and they no longer had time to spend with him. Since he was still a puppy (or at least an adolescent), he developed the usual problems: chewing, barking, digging out of the yard, etc. and they decided they couldn't keep him.

Earlier that summer we had decided we were ready to have a dog in the family again. Our last dog, Molly, died in 2002 and we wanted to wait until the kids could be more involved before we had another one. I had been watching the dog listings at the shelter for a while, and when I saw this one I was hopeful. First of all, he is gorgeous - he has very dramatic coloring and is just a very striking dog to look at, though he's enough of a mutt that you can't quite figure him out. He was also about the right size - 45 pounds or so, not too big for the kids to control, but large enough to play with, hike with, etc. Evaluating a dog at the shelter is tough; you can take one outside into a large pen to interact with away from the noisy kennel, but there are so many distractions it's hard to get a good sense of what a dog is like. We looked at a couple of other possible dogs, just to be sure - I never feel very comfortable making a choice without examining all my options - but he ended up being the one. [My nephew, who was with us that day, likes to say that I brought out successively larger and/or more hyper dogs to make this one look good, but I really didn't stage anything. It was just my usual decision process.]

It didn't take too long for Buddy to settle in. Stray items were not safe from chewing for a while, and Son especially lost shoes and other items since he is the most likely to be lax about picking things up off the floor. But with lots of attention and his own chew toys, that phase didn't last long. Now he can make a rope bone last for months, when at first we were lucky if it made it through a week.

He is very social; he loves to play with other dogs, gets along well with our crabby, aging cat, and of course thinks that everyone who comes to our front door is just here for him. We're not sure what breed(s) he is; his coloring reminds people of a Bernese, but he doesn't have the body type - he has a narrow chest and is long and lean. Border collie, maybe, or some type of setter mix. He's fairly observant, but not as alert as many herding dogs are. He has very little body awareness; his tail is huge and he never knows what it's hitting. He has definite routines and habits. If you wait too long to let him out one last time at night, he won't budge from his bed - he's done for the evening. In the morning, the first person down will let him out, and then he will want to snuggle or lie down again for a while. As soon as the second person comes down the stairs, the mental food bell goes off and he is actively asking for his breakfast. He hates the wood floors in our kitchen and dining room, and will only traverse them if he can make it safely to his "islands" (the throw rugs that are at the foot of the stairs, in front of the sink, and inside the back door). He is goofy, playful, and affectionate. Best of all, he smiles.

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Multitasking

Is it really only two days since we got home from our Thanksgiving trip? It seems like at least a week - there has been so much crammed into that short time. Work has been crazed - we are on deadline for several proposals, and there are some awkward situations involving collaborative projects with outside groups that I am going to have to sort out. At home, there's a huge stack of mail to sort through. I experimented this evening with trying to upload music files to post here, and am having only partial success. There are only a few days left in NaBloPoMo, and I wanted to figure out how to post some of Son's music. But the kids are calling upstairs to tell me that A Charlie Brown Christmas is on TV, so I think I'll stop multitasking and sit down with them instead.

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Fall

Norway maple and grape vine (top and bottom, in our yard) bracketing the neighbor's pin oak. These leaves won't be here for long.

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The TJ's List

What's on your Trader Joe's list? One of my email groups had a fairly extended discussion of this earlier in the week. Okay, this is a list with food as a topic, comprised of people who have busy work and family lives, lest you think that the motivation was solely rampant consumerism. But TJ's is unique among chain stores in the variety and selection it offers, and it was fun to exchange favorite finds. Pass the chili-lime pistachios!

Unfortunately, our residential trajectory seems to keep taking us out of TJ's orbit. When we lived in Santa Barbara in the 80's, one of the early TJ's was in Ventura County. Since my spouse worked down that way, we shopped the store every few months, and were subscribers to the (paper) "Fearless Flyer." Then we moved to the Bay Area. Just as the first TJ's stores were coming in, we moved out -- to the Northwest. It took ten years or so for TJ's to follow. The closest stores are still over 100 miles away from where we live. For a while, we would visit one pretty regularly en route to my parents' home, but two years ago they joined us over here in the back of beyond. So now we're back to pooling shopping lists whenever one of us will be in the vicinity.

We're pretty much limited to non-perishables; the time and distance make it hard to transport frozen foods, and I'm not enough of a fanatic to hunt down dry ice. But we definitely have some favorites that we can't find locally (like the meringue cookies) or are much less expensive (like Barbara's natural cereals, or dried fruit - love the Bing cherries!) or we find their house brand much tastier than the national brands (rice cakes and biscotti fall in this category). That's just a sampling. What's on your list?

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Today's accomplishment

New tile, originally uploaded by NW Wing.

The tile on the island is finished!

I got it installed two weekends ago (in between the two Canada trips) with the help of my friend N, owner/operator of a very cool power tile saw. Today I finally got the grouting done. Not easy to do on a vertical surface, if I do say so myself. Very pleased that this is done!

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Breakfast

I'm not much of a breakfast eater. I think it's because most mornings I don't get to sleep as long as I want and wake up naturally; instead I have to set an alarm because I have to be at work or somewhere on a schedule. But when I get a weekend day where I can take my time, it's a different story.

Today is a gorgeous fall day - the air has a chill to it; the sun is out but there's not much warmth, even in full light. It seemed like the perfect morning for some homemade corn muffins. I used the recipe from "How to Cook Everything"; I find that I use this cookbook a lot for technique and traditional/standard recipes, while my old "Joy of Cooking" is getting dusty. I did make muffins in cups rather than the traditional one-dish cornbread the recipe calls for - since I'm the only one in the family that really likes this, it's easier to stash individual muffins in the freezer and use them a couple at a time. After filling a muffin tin, I had some batter left over, but not enough to fill another dozen cups. So I poured the rest into a little unglazed stoneware dish and had a gorgeous small cake of cornbread to eat warm for breakfast with butter and honey.

Son saw me working in the kitchen and assumed I was making pancakes. That's his favorite breakfast food, though it's never really been mine - they get cold and soggy too easily. When he found out I wasn't making pancakes, he asked if he could make some himself, so I helped him through the recipe (also from "How to Cook Everything"). Pretty soon he had a big stack of nice golden pancakes and excitedly asked if he could call one of his neighborhood friends and invite him over for breakfast. It was fun to see him enthused about sharing what he had made. I know by the time I was his age (almost 12) I was doing a fair amount of cooking and baking on my own. I feel like I should have taught him more by now about how to prepare food and handle himself in the kitchen; maybe we'll make that a project this winter. At any rate, now he knows he can make pancakes from scratch. And I have some nice treats to warm up for myself on cold mornings, even when things are rushed.

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Halloween Recap

Halloween 07, originally uploaded by NW Wing.

* 43 trick-or-treaters at our door
* One 90-lb pumpkin, still sitting intact on the front steps. I think the shell is about 4 inches thick, so I doubt it will ever get carved -- maybe we should attempt some pumpkin puree?
* Cash expenditure on costumes: $0.00 Both kids wore things we already had from prior years. I think that's the first time that's ever happened.
* Approximately 75 pieces of leftover candy. I get dibs on the Butterfingers; spouse and I will armwrestle for the Baby Ruths, and the kids can have the Skittles.
* One party in the church basement, at which Son helped run some games and cleaned up afterward, and Daughter stayed long enough to hear her favorite storyteller read "Heckedy Peg" but then opted for trick-or-treating around the block.

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Back Home

Thanks to those of you who have checked in recently, and apologies for the lack of updates. The first week of October was pretty smooth sailing, and then chaos descended again. That was followed by two weeks in a row of travel to different places in British Columbia (one car/ferry trip, one plane trip). The travel went amazingly smoothly, even the customs and security parts, and both trips were productive, though exhausting. I even managed to avoid a multi-hour airport wait by getting onto a connecting flight at the last minute (the times were too close together so the airline wouldn't issue me a ticket, but I got there right as it was boarding and got the last seat). Hope that bodes well for our upcoming Thanksgiving trip. We have direct flights, and we're not flying on the peak days, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Now for some family time - maybe even outdoors to enjoy the gorgeous fall weather we're having.

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Whew!

I think we've made it. September is over in less than twelve hours. Looking ahead to next week, I don't see any day that has more than two events -- most days in the past few weeks we've had three or four. We're starting to find a new routine that accommodates the new fall activities -- well, all except for Son, who is still forgetting to bring the right book, turn in assignments, etc. The school district changed its electronic grading system right after school started (bad timing, no?) so I was not able to view his grades online until this weekend. Currently he has a perfect 100% average in science -- but two Cs and an F, all due to lost/missing/late/ignored assignments. He's been insisting that he has all his work done, and finishes his homework at school during the study period, so we were buying his assurances that all was well. Not anymore!

Fall is here in the weather as well. The air is now chilly, even when the sun is out. We held out for a while, but finally turned the heater on this morning. And September can't end without acknowledging my dad, who just turned 82. Happy Birthday, Dad!

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By way of explanation...

Since my last post, the following family events have occurred:

• six soccer games
• two potluck picnics
• one orchestra audition (son)
  
• two school open houses
• one all-day field trip (daughter's class - I chaperoned)
• two mornings of standing outside greeting new students as they came on campus
• one book club meeting
• multiple sessions online at various airfare sites wrangling tickets for Thanksgiving travel
• four sleepovers (two for each kid, thankfully at locations other than our house)
• one karate belt award ceremony (daughter)
  
• three trips back to school to retrieve forgotten items or bring them from home
• one sick day (me, with a head cold)
• oh, and a full-time job (me), two days of consulting at sites two or more hours away (spouse), 6th grade (son) and 3rd grade (daughter).
  

Attempts at blogging may resume sometime in October. Thank you for your patience...

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All things Harry

In what was a very full week already, I juggled schedules to get in a number of HP-related activities:

• Finished re-reading OotP and HBP in preparation for the new movie/book releases



• Took a break from packing for our vacation to take Son to see OotP last Saturday. I think the best thing about the experience was learning that at age 11.5 he isn't beyond burying his head in my shoulder when things get scary. We have seen all the movies together in the theater (except for the first, which came out when he was not quite 6 and it would have been too overwhelming) and it was nice to continue the tradition. Review: we both enjoyed it as a movie; it carried us along well without too many breaks from the action to mutter "hey, they left that part out!" It was dark, as was the book, and we both found it a bit difficult to watch Harry's frustration and helplessness build. And the ending seemed contrived. And they keep changing how the dementors look! Minor quibbles, though. Overall, well worth seeing.



• One of Son's friends joined us for the last couple nights of our vacation, and the three kids and I attended a HP7 release party in the small town nearest where we were staying. The bookstore in this town is tiny, so they had rented space in a local school for the festivities. They did a nice job of it - you could make a wand in one corner, answer HP trivia questions in another, or watch the Sorcerer's Stone on video up on the stage. There was a long table with pumpkin donuts, "fairy cakes" (petits fours), and other treats including a large bowl of Bertie Botts Every-Flavor Beans. Raffle tickets were distributed and there were drawings every few minutes. Everyone received a glow stick "wand" which came in handy for visibility when we trekked the two blocks over to the store at 11:45 to line up for books. It looked like there were more than 100 people at the party, though only about 2/3 of the group actually were buying books that night. The store owner had a bag of numbered glow-in-the-dark plastic stars for assigning places in line, and I was lucky enough to draw #5! The #1 star never got drawn, so our little group was actually fourth in line. The bookstore is in a building with several businesses, including a bar at the end of the hallway that had a raucous Friday night crowd rather at odds with the families and teenagers lined up for the book - since we were right up front we had a clear view of the woman in biker attire with multiple tattoos who was checking IDs, and AC/DC and Aerosmith at high volume to keep us from getting drowsy. At 12:01 the doors were opened and we were in! The boys claimed their copies of the books (C's mom had pre-ordered one for him) and held them aloft as they left the store and walked past the cheering line. Daughter was very patient with the fact that she didn't get her own copy; she is determined to read them all in order and has just started CoS. I brought book lights so the boys could read in the car on the drive, and by 12:30 we were back. The boys took the books to bed to read, intending to stay up as long as they could, but I knew after a full day of kayaking, swimming, and mini-golfing that they wouldn't last long. I didn't stay up to check but I think they were both out by 1:15.



• I was up first on Saturday and crept into the boys' room to snag Son's copy. I got in half an hour of reading before they woke up and he came looking for it - had to hand it back right as [spoiler alert] the polyjuiced Harrys were supposed to be arriving at The Burrow, before I could find out who made it safely. The rest of the morning was full as we had to pack up, check out, and drive home, so I didn't get my hands on the book again until early afternoon. Finally finished it after dinner (which was takeout pizza; I wasn't going to put it down to make a meal at that point!). I'll probably need to re-read it more closely to fully form my impressions; I admit to skimming since I wasn't going to peek and really wanted to get to the end. I'll stick some first reactions in the comments...



• And, just for fun....

What Harry Potter Character are You? Hermione Granger You are a smart and intelligent person. You use your smarts to help out friends. You can be emotional at times but you always seem to be in the mood to help someone out. Click Here to Take This Quiz

Quizzes and Personality Tests

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It's the little things

• I am inordinately pleased with my new vacuum. It not only sucks up the dog hair, it even made the carpet nap stand back up. 24 hours later the living room still looked like it had just been vacuumed. Not a small feat with two adults, two kids (and assorted friends), one shedding dog, and one cat going in and out all day.

• The garden is doing pretty well. It's more shaded than in the past, so some things are a bit scrawny (including the strawberries and the basil - drat) but we'll be picking cucumbers in a day or two.

• We went out Monday night to watch the Space Station and shuttle Atlantis pass overhead. It was very cool to see. Though we have long twilights here in the summer, it was bright enough to be seen very clearly as it came over the hills to the west. And it passed directly across the face of a waxing crescent moon. Venus, Saturn and Jupiter were all identifiable as well.

• We will be on vacation when HP7 comes out, but we won't miss the festivities -- the little independent bookstore in the town nearest where we will stay is hosting a midnight release party. This is the first year that the kids are both old enough to be excited about it (though Daughter probably won't be reading it for a while yet-but she did just finish HP1 all on her own).

• Hot weather. First day of summer. Mojitos. Mmmmmmmm.

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More signs of spring

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The garden is in

It's been a couple of years since we really had a vegetable garden. Circumstances and general busyness at planting time have interfered, and unlike the more southerly latitudes I grew up in, the growing season hereabouts has definite limits. Even the stores are only stocked with bedding plants and vegetable starts for about a six-week window. After that, the pickings get very slim, and - at least at our house - habanero peppers and pickling cucumbers do not have an eagerly anticipated harvest.

This year we went all out and borrowed the neighbor's rototiller to prepare the ground. It sped up the process considerably, and left a satisfying swath of bare earth. The soil here is on the silty side, much different from the hard clay of my native California hillside.

Now there are tomato, bell pepper, eggplant, cucumber and squash plants nestled into the soil. The strawberries - some replanted, some new - are blooming and setting fruit. Onions and radishes are sprouting, and the bean and carrot seeds will soon follow. Some of my favorite flowers - poppies, bachelor's buttons, sweet peas - have been sown in between the rows. The herb patch has been rejuvenated; I relocated the oregano and mint near the two lavenders and planted new thyme, sage, and basil. In homage to our central coast heritage, my dad even found us an artichoke plant - we'll see if it produces anything edible before it succumbs to a hard frost.

The anticipated bounty means that we won't continue our CSA subscription this year. I'm feeling a bit guilty about that, though we will still shop at the farmers' market for the produce we won't grow ourselves. Having our own garden is a bit of an indulgence, and it does take resources that impact the household bottom line (the cost of seeds and plants, and the water bill, since we don't have irrigation rights). On the other hand, it has lots of pluses - relaxation, stress relief, exercise, and the potential for expanding the kids' limited repertoire of consumable vegetables as well as their understanding of natural science. Let the growing season begin - this year, we're ready!

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Message from Home

I'm away from home for a night at a conference. It's in a fancy hotel, one that's priced way above my usual limit on nightly lodging rates - this meeting isn't sponsored by a state agency, so the planners didn't have to follow the restrictions that I'm used to. So I'm not accustomed to anything this swanky, and it makes me feel a bit out of place.

After I got my laptop hooked up, and checked my email, and found "Grey's Anatomy" on the TV, I finally got around to unpacking my suitcase. As I picked it up to put it on the folding luggage stand, I noticed something trailing from the bottom. At first I thought it was frayed fabric or the zipper was coming loose, but as I tried to pull it off, I realized what it was: a nice clump of mixed dog and cat hair, courtesy of my furry friends at home. Nice to know they were thinking of me and wished me a good trip.

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CSA

I have been meaning to write about our CSA program all summer. I wish I could say the delay was because I've been too busy finding creative ways to prepare the variety of fresh fruits and vegetables. Alas, I've fallen behind there, too - there are now two batches of green beans languishing in the fridge drawer. This week's Crenshaw melon was fabulous, though, but that didn't need anything except a knife!

Our CSA is an offshoot of our local farmers' market. We get a selection of the produce that's available (along with the occasional jar of honey or pear butter) and the growers get guaranteed buyers. All of it is fresh and tasty. Much of it is organically grown. All of it is from local family farms. Much of it is stuff we would buy anyway on a trip to Safeway - corn on the cob, peppers, lettuce, carrots, peaches - but much fresher. Some of it is stuff we don't buy regularly - okra, daikon radish - or couldn't, like the pluots (a plum/apricot cross) and the white peaches that aren't stocked in supermarkets.

Yes, it's more expensive. Yes, it's more of an effort. But I believe it's worth it. The 8/24/06 issue of The Nation has lots of good reasons why, including this piece with contributions from multiple writers outlining the problems with how food is produced and consumed now in the US (and increasingly in other parts of the world) and some possible solutions.

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Better Now

The kitchen drama is over, mostly. We ended up in small claims court with the contractor, who started the repairs but then just stopped showing up or taking B's phone calls. The award was enough to bring someone else in to fix everything, but we haven't done that yet with the holidays and all. So, end of that saga - on to something else!

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Still no joy in kitchen-ville...

I am trying to block out the fact that it has been more than two months now and the kitchen is STILL not back together. There has been progress; the wall has been repaired, and the damaged flooring replaced (though B had to re-attach and re-paint the baseboards and trim to get that phase done). For the last two weeks we have been waiting on a new end panel to cover the water-blistered exterior of a cabinet, and for the new water line to the refrigerator to be hooked up (these we can't/won't do ourselves). I finally found some ice cube trays that didn't get donated to charity so we can have ice again; it was hugely disappointing to come home on my first hot Friday afternoon off of the summer and NOT be able to make a margarita to enjoy in the hammock. Somehow dragging myself back into the car and down to Safeway for ice just spoiled the desired effect, so I settled for a cold beer.

On the positive side, much unused stuff is being mobilized to the carport for the big yard sale this weekend. The new backyard treehouse is complete and is the star attraction of the neighborhood [house rules: parental permission required and evidence of climbing skills demonstrated before entry is allowed - so far we haven't had to make any rescues!]. The kitchen is mostly functional, even with a limited ice supply. And I will take a couple of days off work next week and hang out with my folks and the kids while B goes to a meeting. Not exactly a resoundingly exciting summer, but not a bad start.

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