What have I done but wander with my eyes in the trees?

Late night Settlers of Catan marathon with our boy and a high school friend of his. Theo was wishing he had opposable thumbs so he could play too. It was a revelation to me when I put on my reading glasses, because I could see the board without squinting (#old).

Miss Lulu has gone home, so we are now down to one dog, one cat. Two of Isaac's college friends spent most of this week chez nous and have now departed too, so we are down to one boy. He leaves tomorrow, emptying the nest yet again.

And OH did I show you this yet? We hung an antique cabinet (courtesy of my mom and dad who bought it years ago), and it only took about four hours of discussion/attempts to line up the hole in the wall with the hole in the cabinet (it's all about studs behind the plaster, etc). ANYWAY, it took four humans to do this, and we did it, and it is securely attached and now even full of dishes, which is amazing. Also in this photo you can see our new window sill--it's a gorgeous piece of oak. We still need to caulk around it and sand and paint the window trim where we messed it up. Then it's on to the floor, the last project before we start talking bottom cabinets!

March is nearly over, my dears. April isn't the cruelest month, no matter what they say.

Vernal

Some green, in honor of spring (although we're about two months behind the official beginning of spring here in Maine, of course). I'm spending this equinox drinking tea, sitting close to the stove, with my hot rabbit-shaped bag of corn on my lap, while I work. Outside, all is cold and gray, tinged with brown.

We have plenty of pellets for the stove, plenty of black tea bags and coffee beans, plenty of dogs and hot water and crows in the sky, plenty of ice left to crack, shows to watch, pies to make and buy and eat with and without slightly sweetened whipped cream, plenty of college kids whose company to savor, all to get us by this short season of not-spring.

Dubai

Only spammers comment on blogs anymore nowadays. Here's a recent spam comment I got:


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Winner winner, banana cream pie for dinner

Banana pie/You are making me crazy...

Pi Day was a smashing success--everyone loved my pie despite the fact that it was a little messy, sliding around into a glorified pudding shape. Jonah had seconds!

You know, sorry to segue from pie into poop, but I have been losing my remaining faith in humanity lately. As things begin the melt-freeze-melt-freeze phase, it's increasingly clear walking around town that people are disgusting slobs, and have been letting their dogs poop hither and thither, not scooping. Giving all of us dog people a bad name, I might add. The long, cold winter is no excuse. It's just gross.

31415

Happy Pi Day, lovey doves. I crowd sourced ideas for the best kind of pie to make today, but I plan to disregard all the great suggestions (pecan, sweet potato, cherry, etc) because I've got four ripe bananas and a creamy dream of banana cream pie in my head.

Lulu is visiting for two weeks while my parents gallivant around northern California and Portland-the-Second. I hesitate to mention this, for fear of jinxing it, but she has been quite civilized so far, waking me at 6:45 or even 7:00, rather than, say, 4:45 in the freaking morning. We mince around the block, Lulu sniffing each individual brick, me breaking every bit of ice that my feet can find. Later in the morning, Mark and Gus head off to the beach while Lulu and I settle in for a long walkabout. Mostly, I let her decide which direction to go, and I catch up on my ever-expanding podcast list.

Don't let my glad expression give you the wrong impression.

Isaac is also here for two weeks, for a luxurious spring break! Zoë, meanwhile, is using her break (only one week) to visit Berkeley, one of the grad school possibilities. Did I mention that at least two grad schools have pretty much offered to shower our girl with money, attempts to lure her to study with them? She is weighing her options right now, but what looks certain is that she won't need to take on any debt whatsoever to get her PhD. So, so proud of her and curious to see what she decides! As of now, it looks like she'll either be in California, Chicago, or India next year.

This weekend's kitchen plans include building a pendant light fixture that will hang over the sink. I'll show you when it's done.

Force Majeure

Skiing is scary,
But even scarier is
Being a grownup.

Early

I keep waking up earlier and earlier--maybe my body's way of preparing me to spring forward? Or maybe it's this stupid cough that I can't seem to shake, which wakes me up approximately every four hours. If my life were a movie, I would definitely be dying of tuberculosis soon.

In a curious role switch, instead of being stared at by Theo, I've been gazed at by Gus all morning. WHY WE'RE UP SO EARLY? WHAT FUN THING ARE WE DOING NOW? He usually sleeps in.

I can't recommend The Great British Baking Show/Bake Off highly enough, by the way. It is the best-natured reality show I've ever watched, with sweet bakers competing nicely, decent, thoughtful judges, and goofy, kind hosts. All of them, of course, British and thus charming. I'm going to attempt a cake they made one week, a many-layered thing cooked under the broiler ("grill" in UK-speak), almost like a pile of crêpes covered with jam and iced in chocolate.

Iced In

I was listening to a story about this woman who's been stuck alone on an island for a month, and when I heard that she has plenty of food, a phone, Internet, and her dog, I thought, "Well that wouldn't be so bad!" The lack of running water, I guess, would be not so fun. But otherwise--her friends even airdropped some coffee and other stuff for her.

It's probably good, however, that we live in Maine's largest city, with actual people we have to speak to and interact with from time to time. And reliable running water, always.

This says so much.

It's supposed to be 45 degrees tomorrow, which sounds like summer weather at this point! But there's a lot of snow out there, and when it melts, it's going to be a mess...

Ruthless Portland, Maine power couple? Or just Mark and me?

But on we go, out into the world every day, back into our house to huddle in sweaters beside the stove, to drink hot drinks and eat fried eggs on things (spaghetti!*) and watch TV and read books and old New Yorkers and work and work and venture back out with Gus again.

I am always proud of Zoë and Isaac, pretty much bursting with how amazing they both are, but lately they are making it really hard for a mom not to brag like crazy.



*Which makes me think of the inimitable "More Spaghetti I Say," with its stuck-in-my-head-for-life lines,

"Oh no.
I can't play.
I can't play with you, Freddy.
Not now.
Can't you see?
I am eating spaghetti."

In My Neighborhood

Neighborhood update:

The corgi people keep collecting corgis, and now have (at least) three of them.

There is a beautiful snow whale around the corner from our house, except today I saw that its head's been a little bit bashed in.

All the houses have icicles, even the Perfect House. I look at them and think about the attics inside, about the insulation in the attics. About warm air and water melting and freezing.

There are so many birds--so many huge robins lately, and I was worried for them until I read that this is normal, they are fine. They don't migrate, exactly, and do perfectly well in cold weather. They may be Canadian robins, larger than the usual ones, or just puffed up in their winter feathers.

There is still snow crunching under my boots, and as cold as it is, I love that sound. Even more, I love (as I did when I was eight) cracking think sheets of ice with my feet. There's nothing more disappointing than a stretch of ice-puddles on the sidewalk that have already been broken (no doubt by an eight year-old).

Inside our house, the slow kitchen progress continues. All of the tile is up, and most of it is grouted. We have some painting to do, a window sill to stain, seal, and install, a pendant lamp to hang, a floor to clean, stain, and seal. AND THEN the cabinets.

Theo the cat, the wonderful wonderful cat.

Here is Theo standing on his hind legs, admiring the tile work.

Rabbit rabbit!

Oh March, please be kind.