Palimpsest

Okay, hear me out: Sicilian twins playing Coldplay on violins.

Here's a capybara getting a massage from a chicken.

And...we're down two appliances in this pandemic. At least it's the dishwasher and the microwave and not the stove and the refrigerator UNLESS I JUST JINXED MYSELF!

I keep writing this blorg post, a few words a day, and each day things get stranger, my friends. We were without running water for one day, one brief strange day of using those crinkly plastic bottles of water (city-supplied, thanks Portland!) to wash our hands and rinse our toothbrushes, and scooping buckets from the tub into the toilet to flush. Since I wrote the above, we've replaced the microwave, but the dishwasher will have to wait awhile, since a person can purchase a new dishwasher, but a person has to haul it from the sidewalk into the house on their own these days. Mark and I keep fearfully pressing our ears to the refrigerator: is it making a weird noise?

And while washing dishes by hand is a stress-relieving activity for a couple of us (Edna and me), we need the refrigerator, which is so full it feels like Christmastime. 

I feel like I'm playing pandemic bingo, and I'm almost there:

• Made our own sourdough starter
• Made the whipped coffee
• Sewed a bunch of masks
• Started a 30-day ukulele class on YouTube
• Made the beneficial biscuits
• Made a comforting soup
• Got carryout from a local restaurant
• Had groceries delivered to our porch
• Donated three N95 masks (discovered in the basement) to a local hospital
• Made no-knead bread thrice
• Watched Tiger King
• Joined a family Zoom meeting
• Cried when a beloved celebrity died
• Canceled a haircut, a dentist appointment, a mammogram, a blood test, and a follow-up shingles vaccine
• Made baguettes
• Had bagels delivered to our porch
• Stood in line for 45 minutes to get into a grocery store

Things are about to enter a new strange phase as the DOT starts work this month on the roundabout project that involves our driveway. Today I gazed out the window, distracted from work, watching two guys with a...circular saw? Cut a line across the bottom of our driveway?

I went to Trader Joe's for the first time in weeks, and their system felt very organized and as safe as can be expected, with all the workers wearing (homemade) masks, and very few shoppers in the store at a time. It's like a dream, drifting around the grocery store peering over the top of my own homemade mask, my own breath like a little ghost caught in front of my mouth. I put a small container of heavy cream in my cart and then wove my way up and down the aisles before I realized it had a leak, and I'd left a long, winding Hansel-and-Gretel trail of white drops through the entire store. I pantomimed my apology to a worker. I don't know how he felt about it, since we were both wearing masks and it's hard to interpret mood through them. But in general, the TJ's folks were not their usual cheery selves.

The catastrophe of my personality

Sign of the times

So I suppose I should call this "Diversions Part II." Here are some of my all time favorite favorite wonderful/hilarious classics from the annals of the internets.

The guy "submitting a vocal audition to be the new backup singer for M83."

The talking dog who wants bacon.

Pearl the landlord.

Adorable French girl talks about animals.


And here are some beautiful/specific/inspiring/scary things:

"Quarantine teaches me what I’ve already been taught, but I’ll never learn — that there are so many other ways to be lonely besides the particular way I am lonely."

People from New York are fleeing to Maine — people with fucking summer houses here.

Samin and Hrishikesh have a podcast and it is just as sweet and funny and calming and amazing as I hoped it would be (I've listened to the first episode three times now).

Oh boy, I totally want this!

Rufus Wainwright is playing a song a day on his Instagram, and Yo-Yo Ma is posting songs of comfort on YouTube.


Edna and I are baking vegan cinnamon rolls today. Mark and I found an open beach this morning where we could walk the dogs in the brilliant sunshine at low tide, far from other humans and their dogs. Isaac and Mark are playing basketball today, just the two of them, and Mark spent some hours yesterday fixing an old turntable of Isaac's. Our neighbor's son, having just driven to Maine from LA, came to our door yesterday asking if we had any rope he could borrow, and it was like a horror movie. Mark basically said, "NO!" and shut the door, which if you know Mark...is really something.

"Now I am quietly waiting for 
the catastrophe of my personality 
to seem beautiful again, 
and interesting, and modern."

Current status

Summery

It feels warm these days, so warm that my body is confused, by the sweating and whatnot. So warm that I've switched my usual breakfast from my beloved oatmeal to my summer version of oatmeal, a variation on bircher muesli.

There are many versions of this, but I like to soak some oats in dairy or non-dairy milk (or apple juice)--you can soak them just a little while, but overnight is best. Then add fruit and nuts of your choice, and a couple of dollops of yogurt or kefir. I usually grate half an apple and add some toasted almonds, and as you can see I had some blueberries today. As you can also see, my coffee's on ice.

So that's what I've been eating lately. And that's what I've been drinking lately, although I'm eagerly anticipating a strawberry-rhubarb shrub I'm making (it takes a week), which when mixed with seltzer will be the perfect summer drink (I think). And speaking of rhubarb, I had never made anything with it until last week, when a bunch from the farmers' market turned into my almost-shrub and a glorious strawberry rhubarb pie, too.

I am proud of this pie, and I can hardly wait to make another one.


I've been watching (and savoring) The Americans and Mad Men with my trusty TV Club.
Reading (and loving) The First Bad Man, by Miranda July.
Missing my girl, who's getting settled in Mysore, where she's learning to speak both Kannada and Tamil this summer, before starting grad school in Chicago.
Digging in the dirt almost every day, just as I'd hoped.

This isn't the best photo of them, but you can see my lupines' happy green leaves and a couple of purply spikes (also forget-me-nots, always going crazy all over our yard, and some chamomile that came back, and some iris I need to divide...). Lupines are my favorite.

Eleventh

You know what's fun? Halfway watching Master Chef Junior while sewing labels in the necks of a bunch of Milo in Maine shirts! For real, it's the sweetest cooking competition ever, all kids under the age of 13. Although it makes me cry a little every time a kid gets kicked off (they kick them off two at a time, so it's never about "you are the very worst, kid"). You can watch the first season on Hulu if you want, but I'm not linking to the show page because I just accidentally spoiled the whole show for myself by looking at it and seeing who wins.

I am going to make this ketchup fried rice for dinner. I'll give you a full report.

thirty

not a recipe, exactly:

and thus, i doctor isaac's ramen in a delicious manner, and prove myself to be a domestic genius.

i liked wheatberries five years ago

i lie. i've never cooked wheatberries, or even given them much thought, before this week. however, they seem to be everywhere lately (kind of like no-knead bread -- are wheatberries the new no-knead bread?), including on this blog, which david showed me. since then, he and ellen have cooked the recipe mentioned there; and i have sworn off ruhlman since his anti-vegan rant. sample lines:

"veganism is a colossal arrogance, a refusal to admit to our own nature, a denial of our humanity. sometimes it kills people. and it's not very much fun, besides."

i tried two recipes, the barefoot contessa's wheatberry salad, and a wheatberries with pecans recipe that's more like a warm side dish. the salad is delicious, although the instructions call for cooking them over low heat for 45 minutes, and i cooked mine for more like an hour and a half, and they still weren't quite soft enough. the balsamic vinegar with the warm sauteed red onion and warm wheatberries and olive oil -- yum. and it's all crunchy and good, and sweet and savory. the second recipe is delicious too, if more plain and unadorned. this time i soaked the wheatberries overnight and then cooked them about an hour, and they came out perfectly.

i think i've broken the record for number of "wheatberry" references in one post. and my spell checker doesn't like it one bit.

tea party

bean made tea yesterday, with white bean dip, bagel chips and veggies, earl grey tea, and these pistachio-rosewater cupcakes. she thought they were too sweet, but they had this wonderful, exotic flavor, a combination of vanilla, cardamom, and rosewater. and aren't they pretty?

bean's been cooking a lot lately -- the night before, she made us a vietnamese meal, with a spicy rice noodle soup and a sweet stir-fried seitan/edamame/red pepper dish that seriously tasted like we were eating at a slightly upscale vegan vietnamese restaurant. tonight, i think she has something with kimchee planned for us...