getting ready for the day

We use Alton Brown's turkey recipe. The bird brines in a bath of salt water, aromatics, and citrus fruit. It smells wonderful!

One nice lookin' pie. The chocolate one is disappointing. I don't make it often enough and forget the minor details like you can't make ganache in the microwave.

Ella came over to help make the pumpkin pie with tofu since she is allergic to dairy. She's a good helper in the kitchen and she especially liked pushing the pulse button on the food processor.

My black market lefse made it from Fargo, thank God. I pay six dollars a package for Freddy's lefse from Fargo and they sell it for twelve at the coffee shop. My lefse agent said when he was in the store, someone was ordering two packages to be delivered overnight for 90 dollars. Holy crap. But it is lefse, after all, and it's only money.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Looks like the roads will be passable around here. I'm glad nobody has to travel too far.

poem from Writer's Almanac today

Upon Discovering My Entire Solution to the Attainment of Immortality Erased from the Blackboard Except the Word Save

by Dobby Gibson

If you have seen the snow
somewhere slowly fall
on a bicycle,
then you understand
all beauty will be lost
and that even the loss
can be beautiful.
And if you have looked
at a winter garden
and seen not a winter garden
but a meditation on shape,
then you know why
this season is not
known for its words,
the cold too much
about the slowing of matter,
not enough about the making of it.
So you are blessed
to forget this way:
a jump rope in the ice melt,
a mitten that has lost its hand,
a sun that shines
as if it doesn't mean it.
And if in another season
you see a beautiful woman
use her bare hands
to smooth wrinkles
from her expensive dress
for the sake of dignity,
but in so doing trace
the outlines of her thighs,
then you will remember
surprise assumes a space
that has first been forgotten,
especially here, where we
rarely speak of it,
where we walk out onto the roofs
of frozen lakes
simply because we're stunned
we really can.

"Upon Discovering My Entire Solution to the Attainment of Immortality Erased from the Blackboard Except the Word 'Save'" by Donny Gibson, from Polar. © Alice James Books, 2005.

Thanksgiving preparation

A few random pictures with no explanation needed.

I took a personal day yesterday to prepare for Thanksgiving. Regis and I bought our groceries at 6 a.m. in Mankato. Our friends at the HyVee were preparing for the onslaught of customers. With Monday's icy road conditions, people were not out shopping and all we've heard since Monday night is the icy conditions anticipated for today. That leaves yesterday. Cars were streaming into the parking lot by the time we left at 7:30. It was gonna be ugly.

I went to the Pulse to exercise, then spent the rest of the day puttering in the house and cooking. The cooking part is what I love. These are the things we did yesterday:

• Made a stop at the Co-op for nutmeg and ginger
• Picked up flowers at the greenhouse
• Made cornbread for the Andouille sausage stuffing
• Baked my Italian country bread
• Made spicy cranberry sauce with jalapenos and apples
• Got the ingredients ready for the onion tartlets
• Caramelized onions for the tartlets and the cranberry compote
• Started thawing the turkey in a cold water bath
• Set the table
• Did dishes...probably ten times

Tonight, we make three pies, brine the turkey, cut up vegetables for the dressings (thank God for the food processor), make the cranberry and apple chutney. I might cut up the vegetables for roasting, too.

I dread the weather conditions. Dread. Dread. Dread. I'll just be traveling around town but all of our kids will be on the roads to school and work and it can drive a guy crazy with worry. No help, I know. But crazy just the same.

So, let's get safely through this day, then on with the show.

early monday

I'm awake at 3 a.m. worrying about icy roads and how I will get to the store for my Thanksgiving groceries. Finally decided to get up and check the weather. Like that will make a difference. And after all of that, I forgot to check.

Also worried about not having enough time to thaw my turkey if I buy it tomorrow. Is it the full moon that does this?

Ella came over Sunday afternoon to bake a pumpkin that we got at Living Land Farm this fall. She wants to make a pie so we baked the pumpkin and she'll come over on Wednesday to finish the pie.

Scooping out the pumpkin guts as she calls them.

Almost five years old!

The finished product. She liked the pumpkin with a little brown sugar on it.

We sat in the chair with the hula girl lights around our necks.

Snuggling.

Looking stylish.

The forecast doesn't look too bad for tomorrow. Icy rain today. Ugh. I have to find my yak trax. Of all things, I found the ones Regis never even put on last year but now I can't find mine. I wore them all the time. What the hell. I hate losing things but it's the story of my life.

Rooting around for Yak Trax at 3:30 in the morning. This is insane.

getting old with gusto

Regis and I were sitting at the bar of one of our favorite restaurants last night, drinking wine and sniffing my perfume. It's Obsession by Calvin Klein and we both love it. We get our perfume and cologne samples from magazines...cardboard perfume we call it.

We remembered how there was a time we scorned smelly stuff and ripped them out and threw them away without a second glance. A couple weeks ago, we splurged and bought a bottle of Obsession, thinking it would be complicated to collect enough samples to get us through the winter. Yesterday I ordered a bottle of Yves Saint Laurent called La Nuit De L'Homme. 

So, what's the difference? I think as we've gotten older and our kids have fled the nest, we've made a conscious effort to enjoy ourselves and do things we didn't do in the past. Getting old is in the head, for the most part. Mom commented on the post below. She wondered if the old people we were teaching were a little over 60. Ha! Hard to tell. Some of the really old people don't act so old and some people my age act like old farts. You know what I mean.

My mom and her friends have a great sense of fun and I admire that. Not one to sit around feeling sad and blue, Mom invites people over for cards or potluck dinners or movies. She has election night parties, choosing carefully the friends to invite so they don't crow over a victory she bemoans. It's a good practice.

I'm not saying we're going to take up trapeze art or drive to Texas or anything like that. Don't worry. We might move to Poland if Sarah Palin gets elected to a national office but that's as daring as we'll get.

We went to Pappageorge last night for dinner. We love it there for many reasons. The staff is so friendly and they seem to remember us from visit to visit. We enjoy sitting at the bar for a glass of wine before moving to a table. Regis paid $3.60 for a bottle of Stella Artois which is a very good deal. The same bottle of beer is more than $7.00 at Grizzly's, a sports bar with many televisions (ugh) on the hill in Mankato. The food is incredible. I've had the seared ahi tuna three times now and it's been excellent every time. Regis had a rib steak last night that was not only enormous but cooked to perfection. Even the salads are delicious. I like the small spinach salad and it has feta cheese and bacon crumbles with a nice light dressing. You can't find food that good very many places in this area. Two thumbs up for Pappageorge.

I went for a long walk yesterday and noticed that this time of year, it's a black and white world. Only little splashes of color...a cardinal at the feeder, a blue jay in the tree, a flag. It's why we appreciate the color and the lights so much in November and December. Be a splash of color today.

planning saturday

1. Get up and drink coffee in front of the faux fireplace. Wear warm slippers.
2. Finalize grocery list for Thanksgiving dinner. 
3. Read over recipes and think about cooking.
4. Go to Whiskey River for breakfast. Have a Mexican omelet with bacon and lots of spicy salsa. Drink lots of coffee. Watch the wild turkeys and the deer.
5. Think about our float in the fish house parade. 
6. Go for a long walk in the sunshine.
7. Buy stuff to make pumpkin truffles.
8. Take a nap.
9. Take a long bath with bubbles, a candle, and a cup of coffee.
10. Meet friends for dinner at Suzette's in Jordan.

Notice there is a lot of thinking and not much doing on this list. My favorite kind of day. I have a long list of  things to do for Thanksgiving Day but I'm ahead of schedule and none of them needs to be done today. That's good. I can revert back to my hedonistic ways and pursue pleasure/avoid pain.

We stopped at the bar last night to help our friend, Vickie, celebrate the first anniversary of her divorce. I had a bag of goofy stuff I shopped for in my office, and I wrote a set of five limericks for her, which of course, I read aloud several times. We had an interesting group of people: Regis and Amber, Gus, Mario, a couple of MVED folks, Nikki and Scott, and us. Lots of laughing and story telling so it was a good way to end a week of work. Work, the curse of the drinking class. Ha!

I'm kind of joking about our hedonistic ways, but I think most people spend way too much time thinking about their obligations and making sure that everyone else is happy but themselves. A guy has to have a well-developed instinct for self-preservation because nobody else is going to make sure that your needs are taken care of and you'll end up at the end of your life like an airless balloon, wishing you had spent more time seeking pleasure. That is a heck of a run-on sentence.

We have some friends who went off on a big adventure yesterday, a two-week cruise to the Panama Canal. I won't mention their names in case a deviant who reads my blog would be enticed to rob their house in their absence. I hope they have fun because it's a once in a lifetime deal, a cruise like that. 

I guess they are expensive, cruises. I had Regis read to me about them one night as I made dinner. There is a big charge to just get on board, then they start adding on the extras. I said we could go, intending to be frugal, and then three days into it we'd get bored and say screw it and revert to our hedonistic ways, eating and drinking with wild abandon.

It's not like we don't do anything for the common good. There are a lot of safer drivers in the elderly population because of us and Regis is signed up to help old people with their taxes. And I think spending my life educating Minnesota's criminal element ought to count for something.

We're heading into the darkest days of the year, folks. Time for a mental health action plan. Ours includes, but is not limited to:

• Party lights on every day at 4:00. Turkeys and hula girls.
• Candles lit every evening. Pumpkin scented..
• Music and lots of it. Mendelssohn, Delbert McClinton, Bob Dylan, Karen Savoca.
• Spicy food. Sirloin quesadillas with stuffed hot peppers.
• Trapiche malbec.
• Summit winter ale.
• Poetry. John Engman, David Lee, David Bengtson, Leo Dangel, Bill Holm.
• Parties. Lots of parties.
• Fish House Parade.
• Exercise. Jingle Bell Jam.
• Friends. See paragraph about last night.
• Little kids. Elliot here Tuesday night. Ella and Alex here Monday night.

There you go. Make it a good weekend, friends. Life is short.

Funny Ice Fishing Music Video - My Favorite Minnesota

Elliot comes to visit

Elliot and Tiffany came to dinner last night. Elliot reminds me of Peter when he was little. He's strong, fast, and very active and hard to keep up with, believe me, it was a three-man job last night. I know little kids are always into more stuff when it isn't their home turf, so I know he wasn't being naughty. He's very affectionate and sweet. But he's very active. And very fast. Did I mention fast?



I thought this series of pictures would make a good slide show. Tiffany asked me to put Elliot's coat on while she took his things to the car. He was a little frantic because he thought "Mama go bye-bye" without him but Regis and I managed to finally get his coat on. The minute I let him go, he made a bee-line for the door and we had to watch Mama come back from the car. Regis said several times during the evening, "This is why young people have babies, and not old people." And one of the reasons they make wine.

Elliot calls us Nana and Popop like the other little ones do. He points at pictures of Regis and says, "Popop!" So cute.

During one of the calmer moments. we started talking about children's misbehavior and what we did about it and what they remember when they get older. I have a friend whose grown children are convinced she beat them with a hair brush when they were in the back seat of the car on a long trip. I can't believe that happened and Mary laughs when they tell it.

Tiffany remembers being locked in her room for hours when she was little. It might have been three minutes but do I seem like a person who could lock a little girl in her room for hours? It makes me sad to think she thinks so. I told her to remember this when Elliot is grown and telling stories about the things she did to him that never happened.

Peter was over, too, but he was not very communicative. Not like the old Monosyllabic Peter, but not very talkative either. He downloaded a Kindle app to his computer so he can read his books for class there...and on his phone.

I have a Kindle that I have not been overly fond of in spite of all the features. Last week, I downloaded the Kindle app to my phone and was amazed to see there were all the books I have on my Kindle, available for download to my phone. I chose one, wondering about the time it would take. Less than five minutes, I think. Amazing. I won't even articulate all the (probably really dumb) questions running through my mind. I've just accepted that there are lots of things flying through the air, like books, of which I am blissfully unaware.

If you remember, one of my major complaints about the Kindle was that there were no visuals. No book cover to imprint on my mind, the title and author. The Kindle app on my phone has a nice, colored photo of the book cover. Ta da! I love it!

I heard on the radio this weekend (and not sure if this was a joke or not) that there is an app for your phone that rings once in a while to remind you that the device actually is a phone, too, and will make calls. Funny even if it isn't true. Yesterday, I had a couple of revelations about google calendar. Amazing. When I think of all the things I do with my phone, making calls is the least of it. Maybe the future is Radiohead but it's also android phones.

It's all part of the story

I talked to my brother Pat last night and he told me a story that had me waking up at 2 a.m., composing a re-tell for the blog.

Pat has a friend whose dad is getting older and a little goofy. He went to the driver's license bureau one day to turn in his license because, and these are his exact words, I'm blind in one eye and can't see out of the other. The kind lady behind the desk said, "Oh, don't be too quick to do that. Let's test your vision." Lo and behold, he passed and walked out with his license. I would say if a guy's own assessment is that he can't see they ought to take him at his word.

The same old guy called his son one day and said he wanted to buy a gun. Son goes to see dad and together they go to the gun shop. Same old guy who is blind in one eye and can't see out of the other. He needs the gun dealer's help to fill out the four page form because....he can't see the lines. But he walks out with a snub nosed 38. I have no idea what that is but Pat says it's a gun meant for deadly business. What the hell, I say.

I read this on Your Daily Poem today: "There are nearly thirteen million people in the world. None of those people is an extra. They are all leads of their own stories." Charlie Kaufmann wrote that in his play (film?) Synecdoche, New York. I also like the poem there today. You can find it here. On my paranoid days, I don't reprint poems because I worry about the copyright police. I wonder if they make you go to meetings in copyright jail.

This Goat's Life: Fairies in the Kitchen

This Goat's Life: Fairies in the Kitchen

fast morning blog post

It's 4:35 a.m. on a cold November morning. I was so tempted to stay in bed and pretend I had over-slept which of course, I hadn't because I was awake and plotting it. I got out of bed and put my exercise clothes on right away so it would be easier. I loathe Mondays.

Someone wrote on Facebook about the Twins. Are they still playing baseball in November? I'm embarrassed to ask and I couldn't find it in the paper. I thought the World Series was in October. I don't like this cross-over of sports seasons.

We watched a program last night called Marathon Challenge. Regis ordered it from Netflix. The PBS program NOVA took 12 people who were not athletes and trained them for the Boston Marathon. They didn't gloss over the injuries but they did make it look a lot easier than I think it would be. Either that or those people were very motivated. All but one made it to the finish and she only because of an injury. I learned some things, though, about glycogen stores in your body. Interesting. Can't watch NOVA without learning something.

I'd like to spend another hour pondering this blog post, writing a little more, drinking some more coffee, then get up to bake a loaf of bread. Not to be. Off to the Pulse.

cooking on a gloomy november sunday

On Sundays, I like to have the radio on MPR so I can listen to A Prairie Home Companion, Car Talk, and Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me while I cook. Today, I baked muffins that I like to take to work for a morning snack and cottage cheese pancakes. Both recipes are staples in my kitchen. Since my surgery, I don't eat much bread or white flour so I make both of these recipes with oatmeal, almond flour, and other healthy things. Very dense, no sweeteners, and lots of protein.

We made it to Patrick's last night and the crowd wasn't too unruly until about midnight. Then, what has been called the meet-up crowd, came stumbling in. Kids who have been at house parties and only come to the bar to hook up. They made dancing difficult, believe me. We enjoyed the band, the limerick contest, and the leprechaun look-alike contest. Such silliness.

I worked on the Thanksgiving plan this morning. All is done. The menu printed and put on the front of the binder, the to-do list, the grocery list. I got out the table linens yesterday, the silverware, and the extra wine glasses. Tomorrow, I'll mail the invitations to the friends and family who come. What a concept...mailing an invitation printed on paper. So much is done electronically now.

I'm making Alton Brown's Good Eats Meatloaf for dinner. Sounds like a good meal for a cold November night.  We have a movie to watch but it's been around for a month and we never seem to make time to watch it.

We're having our cable disconnected tomorrow. Regis had to run the gantlet at Mediacom to get that arranged because they just couldn't believe that we don't want to watch television.

Just checked my blog to see what I was doing two years ago in November. Here are the notes Regis wrote regarding the turkey. I think I'll write my annual "what I'm thankful for" blog post tonight. If we don't watch the movie, that is.

The Brined Bomber (2010 bought at 18.5 turkey. A little too big for the roaster.)

Turkey was thawed over a period of several days on the porch in a soft sided cooler. Air temperature on the porch was about 45 max during the daytime on the porch and near freezing at night. Turkey was moved to a cooler full of water and ice cubes where it remained for about 12 additional hours.

The Brining

Basic recipe for the 21 lb bird was 3 gallons of water, 1.5 C salt, and 1.5 C brown sugar. Also added to the plan were quartered oranges and onions. Spices were rosemary and thyme. The turkey was placed in a plastic bag into the cooler along with the solution. It sat on the porch for an additional 12 hours.

The Cookery

Turkey was removed from the brine, rinsed, and the cavity stuffed loosely with apples, oranges, onions, more spices, and garlic. It was salt and peppered and liberally coated with olive oil.

The bird was set breast side down on a V shaped rack and cooked in a 400 degree oven for 1 hour. It was then flipped over, the breast covered with foil, basted with chicken stock, and the oven was reduced to 350 degrees for an additional 3 hours and 20 minutes. It was basted with broth every hour. The breast was 165 to 170 when it came out and the thigh was 175.


We put the turkey in at 11:45 and he was done in 2 and 3/4 hours. A little faster than we planned on but the meat was so moist and delicious.

oh, the difference a week makes

Last week at this time:

62 degrees and sunny

Today:

32 degrees and snowing 

walter mondale spa package

Regis and I have laughed about how, with the new phones, we don't always know how we got some piece of information. Did it come by text message, instant message, email? The input is so fast and so varied. I use gmail on my laptop and as it' booting up, I get these quick little views in the lower corner of all the new emails. Sometimes I read them so fast I get them mixed together. The subject line happened yesterday. Walter Mondale Spa Package? Actually two separate emails. Interesting concept, though.

I stopped to have a glass of wine with some women friends yesterday. We had more than a few laughs. Good way to end a week where the zombies chased me to the car every day.

I gave my friend, Joanne, a pair of shiny purple leggings for an early birthday present. I have a pair myself and would never wear them outside of the house, but they're a hoot and they make you feel like you're in Footloose. Or something.

We've decided, given the weather forecast, that we won't be leaving town tonight. Instead, we will strategically attend the Durty Nellys show at Patrick's. This will require at least one nap, maybe two, and a steel resolve. It will be loud and crowded but it's a band we'd really like to hear.

It was my goal for the week to get all the tubs put away but here it is, Saturday morning, and they're still everywhere but put away. I will get it done today. Lots of coffee, some good music, and Thanksgiving just around the corner.

here comes winter and apps on my phone

We were blessed with the most beautiful and lingering fall this year but all good things end and this surely will, too, and most likely tonight. There is rain and snow in the forecast, accumulations up to 4 inches. Ah, well. The end of barbecue season is really here. The patio chairs are stowed in the garage and the snow blower is at the ready. Sad...but so it goes.

We love Thanksgiving and as I've mentioned before, we're busy working on the plans. Yesterday, I made a preliminary menu and printed the lists from last year. I am not an organized person by nature but sometimes the DNA from some long, lost anal retentive ancestor kicks in and I become organized in some small aspect of my life.

I love holidays and holiday cooking so I have a binder for each holiday. I print a nice cover with the menu for the current year's event. Inside the binder, I have the recipes (in plastic sleeves), the to-do list, the grocery list, the list of dishes I used to serve, the guest list, etc. Does this sound a little kooky?

So, the Thanksgiving binder is out and ready. I have a few new recipes that I tucked inside to contemplate. Regis made an invitation for the day and those should go out next week. If you don't have a place to go, we'd love to have you. Unless you're the person who has been posting links in the comment section to sites where a guy could buy viagra. Then we wouldn't love to have you.

Regis and I are constantly amazed by our new phones and have decided that even though we had to get a second mortgage to buy them (not true) they were worth every penny. When we were in Brainerd, Regis discovered an app called Shazam. Read this from Slate:

Shazam is the closest a cell phone can come to magic. Say you're in a restaurant, a song comes on, and you can't quite place the tune. In the past, your options were limited; you could try asking your spouse or the waiter for a clue, but that approach risked revealing your ignorance. (That's "Sex Machine," dumb ass.) Shazam—which launched in the United Kingdom in 2002 as a call-in service and became widely known in the United States last year when it hit the iPhone—solves the dilemma in a few clicks. Press a button on your phone, and in seconds you'll get the artist and song title. Other than playing video games, it's the most useful thing you can do on your phone.

If you want to know how it works, read this. It's like taking a cave man on an airplane.

We also use something called Swiftkey. It's a predictive spelling thing for text messaging. I have, seriously, written sentences where I only had to spell out two or three words. It gets to know the words you use most often in text and it "learns" those words. Amazing. It did screw me up one time. I sent a text to Young Regis asking if he would put my chicken in the garage. The text actually said this: Will you put my big metal churchmen in the garage? He was confused.

We have another app called Bump and this is the last one I'll write about today. Here's what the website says about Bump: There are two parts to Bump: the app running on your device and a smart matching algorithm running on our servers in the cloud. The app on your phone uses the phone's sensors to literally "feel" the bump, and it sends that info up to the cloud. The matching algorithm listens to the bumps from phones around the world and pairs up phones that felt the same bump. Then we just route information between the two phones in each pair.  Servers in the cloud? Matching algorithms? In my phone? What the hell.

Here we go. I love Fridays because I'm generally in one building all day, it's my favorite building because I have an actual desk, a phone, and friendly people. That ain't true everywhere I go. Happy Friday, my friends. Make it a good one.

i have a reputation to uphold

I said a week ago or so on Facebook that I was in search of turkey lights for Thanksgiving. I love party lights and have them for most holidays except Thanksgiving. Today, a package arrived with two strings of turkey lights. My sweet husband made sure I had turkey lights for this year's festivities.

They came all the way from China which is funny and embarrassing at the same time. Imagine the workers in the factory that makes turkey lights. They must think we (royal we) are insane.

Bob and Betty brought me a wonderful gift when they came and they tried to fulfill the party light wish but couldn't find them in Alexandria. They brought turkey paper napkins that we'll use for Thanksgiving and hula girl party lights that we're going to string over the patio door. A good stand-in for turkeys.

I made it to the car after work before the zombies got me so I'm happy and relaxed at the end of the day. You have to watch out for zombies. They know your habits and they'll wait for you but I was faster and I dodged them. Whew.

happy hump day

I have been entertained all evening by the archives of my blog. I was pretty funny a few years ago and wonder what happened. If you are ever irritated by my lack of productivity here, just go back and read the old stuff. It's all the same rants and goofiness so it won't matter. Not like I'm documenting current events or anything.

We have the best squirrels in our yard. When Regis was making his list of things to do this morning before I went to work, I said to add "take pictures of the squirrels". We have a pair (siblings? husband and wife?) of white-eared squirrels that seem to be around every winter.  I don't know much about squirrel habits so whatever. They are certainly healthy looking this time of year with sleek coats and fat tails. They sure keep busy.

I got a birthday box in the mail from Cousin Deb. It smelled delicious as I opened it and it contained three huge bath bombs and some assorted bath things from a company called Lush. Regis, ever curious, called me at school to tell me I had a package delivered, then looked it up online. He sent a text later that said it looked like little kids made soap out of their dead pets. Where does he get this stuff?

After many beautiful days in a row, the sky darkened and it rained a little today. The sky looks November-ish but so far, no snow. I hear they are under a winter storm watch in North Dakota. Poor souls. Time to start making potato dumplings and lard soup.

Speaking of lard, I was in the coffee shop today and noticed they had a sign for lefse: $12.95 a package. I hollered over at a friend of mine to ask if her son was coming down from Fargo this weekend. He gets the same lefse for $4.00 a package. I ordered five packages to get me through the holidays although lefse is a dangerous thing to keep in the house. Some of my family has learned to like it with sugar. I have cousins who are sugar-eaters but my family was not. We were lefse purists. Butter and maybe a piece of turkey but no sugar. Now I have to serve lefse on two plates...sugar and non-sugar. Harrumph.

I sort of wish I had the gumption to make lefse as I used to but I don't. It's in the category with counted cross stitch and hitch hiking: things I did in my youth but wouldn't consider doing now.

Regis and I are trying to plan our weekend. We have several choices for Saturday night:

1. A quiet dinner at our favorite romantic spot, Papageorge in Mankato.
2. A raucous show at Patrick's by the Irish rock group the Durty Nellys.
3. A folk concert at the Bothy by a group called Sweety Patootie.

There are definite +s and -s to each but we're leaning toward #1. As much as I'd love to see the Durty Nellys, it would require a quality nap, staying up until midnight, a tolerance for a large crowd, and probably more wine than would be good for me. A guy just can't deal with that much stimulation without self-medicating.

more poems and meat and orange plastic tubs

Regis and I were moved by the lovely words read by our friend Bob on Saturday night. He recalled the first poem I ever sent him and we had to dig through a box of books in the basement to find The Book of Luminous Things to find it. I recalled a poem by David Lee (the pig poet of Utah) about going to town to buy his wife a birthday gift and coming home with a 6-pack of beer and a pig called Jan's Birthday. I don't have a text copy but I do have the CD so if you want to hear it, you'll have to come around.

This is not necessarily the high-brow activity that it seems at first glance. We have a taste for poems ordinary guys can understand. Like I Love You Sweatheart reprinted below that Bob read Saturday night. Thanks, Bob, for reminding us of the tears and laughter poems can bring us.

I woke up this morning at 4:00, kind of sore and tired from my workout yesterday so I decided to sit in front of the fireplace this morning and drink coffee with Regis instead of going out into the dark of night to exercise. This could be our last warm autumn day so it's important to savor it. Thursday looks like we'll be in the 40s which is a whole other dimension of autumn, the not so pleasant one.

I had coffee with my friend Jill yesterday. She makes a great strong coffee with lots of cream and we visited in the late afternoon sunshine. In the span of about three weeks this fall, she lost her dad and then celebrated the births of two new grand babies. It was a poignant journey on her blog, the eulogy for her father, Charlie, the birth of Vivian, then the birth of Weston. We laughed and then we cried. We shared stories and hugs. I'm so glad we're friends.

Regis made a wonderful pot roast yesterday. It was nice to come home at the end of the day to that smell in the house, then to have a big bowl of beef, carrots, onions, and mushrooms. Today, we're roasting one of the chickens from Mike's farm. Not a grocery store chicken. I've seen them go through town in the back of a truck and they don't look happy, all crammed in those cages with their little heads poking out into the wind, feathers flying, clucking like crazy.

When I was in Canby, Mom and I went to the butcher shop for sausage for Scott, a friend of ours from here who used to live there. The butcher shop used to have a door on the street but now only has a door in the back alley, right next to the door where the cows go in for the last time. We parked and walked up to the human's door. There was a trailer with several brown-eyed cows waiting to unload at the other door. I told Mom, "Don't make eye contact!"

We walked in and took care of our business. As we were leaving, they opened the trap door and started unloading the cows. They were not happy. I started dancing around with my hands over my ears and said, "I have to get out of here!" I'm sure the farmer thought I was crazy. I don't have any issues with the eating of meat as I am a good little omnivore, I just don't like to be in the presence of distress. I don't really like to think about where my meat comes from, although I appreciate very much the sacredness of the animal's sacrifice.

You really should listen to Garrison Keillor's story about the hog butchering. It will make you think about animals in a whole new way.

It's Tuesday. My goal for the week is to get all the tubs where they belong. I have Halloween tubs stacked up in the living room and tubs full of spring clothes stacked in the porch. If we're entertaining for Thanksgiving, and we are, they have got to go. I don't want to ask people to put their dinner plates on orange plastic tubs. That would be gauche. Right?

I've dawdled over this long enough and need to get ready for work. Happy Tuesday. Do something fun today.

I Love You, Sweatheart

by Thomas Lux

A man risked his life to write the words.
A man hung upside down (an idiot friend
holding his legs?) with spray paint
to write the words on a girder fifty feet above
a highway. And his beloved,
the next morning driving to work...?
His words are not (meant to be) so unique.
Does she recognize his handwriting?
Did he hint to her at her doorstep the night before
of "something special, darling, tomorrow"?
And did he call her at work
expecting her to faint with delight
at his celebration of her, his passion, his risk?
She will know I love her now,
the world will know my love for her!
A man risked his life to write the world.
Love is like this at the bone, we hope, love
is like this, Sweatheart, all sore and dumb
and dangerous, ignited, blessed--always,
regardless, no exceptions,
always in blazing matters like these: blessed.

no wonder we look so happy

Clean garage. Lawnmower stowed away for the winter. Snowblower at the ready.
62 degrees on November 7th. Leaves raked to the curb.

 Apple smoked ribs on the grill.

Lingering poems and songs about love.

Half-Rack at the Rendezvouz

She had a truck, red hair,
and freckled knees and took me all the way
to Memphis after work for barbecue.
We moaned and grunted over plates of ribs
and sweet iced tea, even in a room of strangers,
gnawing the hickory char, the slow
smoked meat peeling off the bones,
and finally the bones. We slurped
grease and dry-rub spice from our fingers,
then finished with blackberry cobbler
that stained her lips and tongue.

All the trees were throwing fireworks
of blossom, the air was thick
with pollen and the brand-new smell of leaves.
We drove back roads in the watermelon dusk,
then tangled around each other, delirious
as honeybees working wisteria.
I could blame it all on cinnamon hair,
or the sap rising, the overflow of spring,
but it was those ribs that started everything.

William Notter

Valentine

Chipmunks jump, and

Greensnakes slither.

Rather burst than

Not be with her.

Bluebirds fight, but

Bears are stronger.

We've got fifty

Years or longer.

Hoptoads hop, but

Hogs are fatter.

Nothing else but

Us can matter.

      

-Donald Hall

bob and betty bergstrom come to town

Our friends, David and Marilyn Bengtson, came to St. Peter to perform their program Poems and Songs about Love. We invited lots of people but didn't ask for responses so really had no idea how many to expect. I fretted about attendance but Bob (David) said size doesn't matter (hee hee) so on with the show.


About 12 people came and it was a magical evening. I think, after all, it was exactly the right number. We didn't have any chatters or any drifters. We all fit in the kitchen for wine and cheese and conversation. The audience was mesmerized by the beautiful singing and the lovely words. We laughed, we cried, and in the end, we gave them a standing ovation. 


I've known Bob for maybe ten years but had never met Marilyn. When she got out of the car yesterday dressed all in black with sparkley earrings, high-heeled boots, and a long coat with fancy buttons, I thought here is a woman I will love, my soul sister. She and Bob are also regular readers of my blog so they know their way around my life. It was a wonderful time.


One of the poems Bob read:

The Shirt

BY JANE KENYON

The shirt touches his neck

and smooths over his back.

It slides down his sides.

It even goes down below his belt—

down into his pants.

Lucky shirt.

And one of my favorites from Bob's poem collection:

What Calls Us

In winter, it is what calls us

from seclusion, through endless snow

to the end of a long driveway

where, we hope, it waits--

this letter, this package, this

singing of wind around an opened door.

                    David Bengtson © 2003

Oh, if you missed this, you should be sorry. It was wonderful in so many ways.

Regis and I are going out later to do our very best procrastination work on the yard and garage. We know 
there could be snow any day now even though the weather has been gorgeous. We also plan to squeeze one
more grilling out of the season. Ribs. 

I'll finish this later, when the guests are gone and the leaves are raked and I'm done licking rib 
spice off my fingers. Maybe we'll even have a few photos. 

Enjoy the day.


Apologizing for the weird formatting. It happens when you paste into blogspot. Ugh. Can't be 
fixed.

grilling in november

My Halloween table. I love Halloween stuff...dishes, napkins, table linens, candles.

We made fajitas on the grill one last time last week. It's one of our favorite meals.

The butcher talked us into trying boneless sirloin instead of flank steak. It was delicious.

My rakishly handsome husband.

 We did a lot of grilling on October...and one last time yesterday. We cook with charcoal and it's hard to keep the temperature high enough when it gets cold outside. I love standing on the patio in the leaves while Regis cooks.

Tomorrow, the grill will be covered for the winter and the patio furniture stored in the garage. We'll miss it.

another week floats by

It's been a busy week again. A busy fall.

We have yard work to do this weekend, before the city comes to gather up our leaves on Monday. It's a nice service. You pile them on the curb, they come and suck them up with a giant vacuum cleaner. Not a trace when you come home late in the afternoon.

I probably will not get the cannas dug out of the ground before it freezes. That's the problem with those darn things...such a nice idea in the spring and such a pain in the ass in the fall.

I also have mums I didn't get in the ground. Karl is coming to give us a price on a new piece of patio that will take about a hundred square feet of my garden. I didn't want to plant them somewhere that will just be dug up in the spring.

Every day, I change my mind about retiring, then change it back the next day. I will. I won't. I'm afraid of the insurance issues and asked Regis to investigate moving to Poland where they welcome retirees with regular income. They have socialized medicine but I try not to imagine what that looks like. I doubt that two people who hate to fly and don't like to leave home would ever move to Poland, but it's nice to think your medical needs would be taken care of without going broke.

We've been gone so much the last few weeks that the grocery situation in our house is grim. I need to work on a list and get back to cooking. I think I'll bake one of those nice chickens in the freezer this weekend. Make a meat loaf. Bake some bread. Make soup out of the bones I got at Jimmy's shop in Canby.

I haven't read a book in a long time and I haven't been a regular reader in the last two years. I don't know what happened. I had trouble, at first, finding things that appealed to me. I reread books I liked in the past. I tried to read on the kindle but didn't like it. I started a lot of things and never finished them. I got out of the habit. I hope I can get back in the reading habit. I miss it.

I started planning for Thanksgiving this week. In the car on the way to Mom's house, I sent text messages to the kids about the plans, asking them to bring this or that, asking if they were coming. They replied with: You do know it's still a month away, right? I do but I like to plan. Every morning in the bath tub, I make a plan for the day. Today, I'll make a plan for the weekend. I like to know what's coming.

I'm got out the Thanksgiving binder this morning. It has all my recipes and grocery lists and menus. I page through it and remember cornbread and Andouille sausage stuffing. Spicy cranberry dipping sauce. Emerill's chocolate covered peanut butter pie. Pumpkin truffles. I have lists from past Thanksgiving meals...lists of things to do, lists of things to buy, lists of people to invite. Typed lists with penciled notes and things crossed out. My plans.

I'm going to the Pulse in a while. Before the sun comes up this morning. I need to get the party lights out, folks. Bring on the party lights.