This is What You Get When I'm a Packing Procrastinator

Going to New York. By way of Las Vegas. Back to posting on Wednesday.

And Happy Tomorrow Birthday to Tuey (the nicest boy I know)!

Sticky Wicket

I'm going to NYC this weekend. Rebekah is coming up to meet me from DC. I was hoping to see Michael while we're there, but, sadly, he's performing in Maine right now. Rebekah refuses to grieve about this even though it's a tragedy and makes me resent the good people of Portland and their Shakespeare-watching ways just a tiny bit. I forgive Rebekah for her lack of grief on my behalf, though, because just getting her to New York may be a tricky proposition what with her ID and identity being stolen and the bus company requiring ID and all. She may have to employ her womanly wiles to get herself onto the bus, and I can see how that might distract her from cursing the residents of Maine.

Welcome, Autumn

Today is the first day of fall. This is perfectly acceptable as I have been engaging in fall activities for the last several days.

Most notably I

-Put up applesauce on Saturday. I bought Gala apples at my local farm stand to make applesauce, which my sister advised me was a bad idea. Galas don't cook down easily. I ignored my sister, though, because I already had half a bushel of apples sitting on my kitchen counter. You just have to show the apples who's boss (and then cook them for a surprisingly long time, because, yea, verily, Galas are bad applesauce apples).

-Made Aunt Muriel's apple cake, my fall food of choice.

-Went hiking this evening and marveled at the fall foliage, even though I was complaining just days ago to my mom that the trees in Utah don't change color like they do at home. It was a very pretty hike, and I did not encounter any mountain lions, which I discovered is a fear of mine. I DID encounter stinging nettle, because I'm completely unable to identify harmful plants.

Next up for fall activities:
1. Pumpkin purchasing
2. Baking apple cake many, many, many more times
3. Cowboy poetry

It's a very fine season.

Musings from a Grandmother

I presented at a conference on Friday. (It went really well, and I realized that I love presenting because I get praised and validated by my peers, as compared to most of my professional life, where so much of my feedback comes from our ungrateful library patrons. Patrons are far less generous with the compliments. Unless it's the bird guy telling my boss he likes her feet. Or inmates.) I drove to the conference with our Hispanic Outreach Coordinator, who I like very much. She's originally from Peru and is a grandmother and, being older than most of the librarians on staff, often gives the single gals (unsolicited) advice on catching a man. Advice that is heavily influenced by her cultural background. Most of the way to the conference, she sat in the passenger seat, filing her nails and discussing male-female relations with me.

This was my favorite part:

Co-Worker: I just don't know about boys these days. Have you noticed how slow they are? They're just not motivated to get married. They wait so long to get serious and get jobs and settle down. I don't know what they're waiting around for.

MBC: Hmmm.

Co-Worker: I just wonder about these boys. I wonder if they're staying moral. And if they ARE, they must not have a sex drive, you know? Now, [MBC], believe me, you don't want one without a sex drive.

This was, naturally, the part where I almost crashed the car. I've never been so entertained on a road trip in my life.

Constant Vigilance

This evening, in a restaurant, I reached for my wallet to pay my bill, and it was not there. Fortunately, it was on the car seat, where I had tossed it earlier in the evening, because I am a paranoid, paranoid, paranoid girl. I had been filling up my car with gas in a dark and lonely Sam's Club parking lot immediately before meeting friends for dinner, when I suddenly noticed that both the other cars filling up had pulled away and the only living soul around was a scary looking guy, leaning against his car and smoking. I naturally assumed that he was leaning against his car, smoking, and plotting how to (a) kidnap me (b) mug me or (c) hijack my car. Sooo, I tossed my wallet (which I was holding in my hand), into the car, onto the car seat, to minimize the likelihood that I'd be held at knifepoint by the parking lot man. Fortunately, he was just a smoker, not a hijacker.

Last week, I suspected one of our library patrons of having a bomb. He looked nervous and kept glancing at me when he got off the elevator (probably because I was sizing him up so I would have a good description to give to the police when I reported him for bringing a bomb into the library). I also thought I heard a metallic clanking coming from his bag. So, I called another librarian and made her promise to keep an eye on him. Just in case.

Once when I arrived at work early in the morning, there was an elevator repair truck in the parking lot. I IMMEDIATELY thought, That's the way the members of Tom Cruise's team infiltrated the FBI in Mission Impossible. Except with fire trucks. Same principle. I wonder if this truck is legit or if I should go ahead and call dispatch right now.

And there was that time I was on the metro in Russia late at night by myself. The only other person in my car was a middle-aged man. Part way through our ride, he reached inside his jacket. I was CERTAIN he was reaching for a gun and I was furiously plotting my escape and searching my brain for the appropriate Russian phrasing of Help! This man has a gun. It was actually cigarettes he was after, but you just never know.

Constant vigilance.

Grilled Cheese Secret Ingredients

My new favorite thing: Grilled Cheese Sandwiches.

I'm on the hunt for good recipes. All last week I made grilled cheese sandwiches with my favorite wheat bread, tomatoes, black pepper, Havarti cheese (because when I picked up the Beehive Cheese Co. cheese at my local hippie store, I was very excited and interested to try the cheese smoked with walnut shells and apples, but then I saw the price and realized that I do not yet love the Earth or local manufacturers or any of my food principles enough to pay that much for a dairy product, dear as it is to my heart, so I bought some nicely priced Danish goodness instead. I will have to do some expensive-cheese-purchasing visualizations before my next trip to the hippie store). Today I ran out of tomatoes, so I substituted pears. Interesting. I have roasted red peppers in the cupboard and fresh mozzarella, both of which seem like wise grilled cheese sandwich fillings, and basil would be a nice addition to that kind of sandwich if I hadn't completely forgotten about my beautiful basil plant last week and left it uncared for on the balcony for a few days before coming out to find its withered, yellowed plant carcass lying on the concrete.

And I'm wondering what I could do with a cinnamon bread base . . .

Any suggestions?

Facts

Game I play badly:
Foosball

Why I play badly:
It's hard.

Sound that wakes me in the morning:
Cows mooing

Why it wakes me in the morning:
The cows who live across the street are, apparently, some of kind of impressively loud bionic breed.

What I do when I visit my sister's house and no one's home:
Eat her food.

Why I do this when I visit my sister's house and no one's home:
Why should things be any different when no one's home?

Person I most enjoy speaking to on the phone:
Tuey

Why I most enjoy speaking to him:
He is my best good boyfriend.

Vacation I would like to take if I had more travel funds than I currently have:
Anywhere Country Walkers go, but particularly on their Amalfi Coast & Isle of Capri trip.

Why I want to go:
Have you seen the Amalfi Coast?

Best thing I learned from National Geographic today:
There are HEROrats who are trained to detect landmines in Africa.

Why I'm impressed by what I learned in National Geographic today:
I'm glad to know that SOME rats are pulling their weight, instead of just traumatizing children. (If I were a kinder human being, I'd probably be more interested/concerned about the survival rate of HEROrats, but I'm not.)

Hooray!

Look what just came to a grocery store near me:


Ohhh, sweet yogurty goodness!

Now my list of delicious foods I cannot find in Utah are down to
Skyr
Black and White Cookies
Hush Puppies (the GOOD kind)

Not bad. Not bad at all.

My Favorite Part

Madame 4-yr-old said the prayer at dinner tonight. My favorite part was when she prayed that Tuey wouldn't have bad dreams about romper stompers and that she and her sister would remember not to tease him about romper stompers. This may top the time she expressed her gratitude that "cougars don't eat people" over the evening meal.

Madame 4-yr-old and Tuey.

Yesterday's Best Reference Question

First thing in the morning yesterday, an elderly man who frequently contacts the library called the reference desk. Usually he calls up and says to me, "Now, I've been watching the news, and I keep hearing about a place called Dar.fur. Is there a country called Dar.fur.?" And then we chat about Sudan. Or he calls and says, "I saw on television yesterday a special about Easter. Now, when did the celebration of Easter begin?" And then we chat about pagans. Yesterday he called and told me, "I was watching channel 41 yesterday [he watches a lot of TV] at 3:15 and I saw a show called Transitions and there was a model on there with dark brown hair. Can you help me find her?" Yeah, his "show" was this commercial. My question is why, exactly, he needed to find this model.

Did you see this episode of The Office? Dwight would be a good librarian.

Naked Mole Rat

If you are unfamiliar with naked mole rats, you are living in some ignorant bliss, because they are nas-ty. And that is why I do not understand why Mo Willems has decided to scar little children for life. Mo Willems, who is, deservedly, a multiple Caldecott Honoree and, I hear, a very pleasant fellow, has a new book coming out in January. It's entitled Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed and it features, of course, a naked mole rat. The PROBLEM is that little children being what they are, they're going to read this book and want to learn more about naked mole rats. And then they're going to discover that naked mole rats are not the innocuous (even lovable) creatures they're made out to be in a happy Mo Willems book. They're going to see (brace yourselves, friends; seriously, don't click the link unless you're prepared to be sicked out) this. And then they're going to be in therapy for the rest of their lives.

It was a Good Day

1. My car did not malfunction on my way to and from my workshop. (Note to Utah: Learn to drive!)
2. There were free cookies at my workshop. Not particularly good cookies. But free.
3. The teens on our new teen board are adorable.
   
4. The new Dar CD came out today.
5. Track 3 is really good.
   
6. I had dinner with one of my favorite people at one of my favorite restaurants.
7. And she sent me home with her paneer masala leftovers.
8. And she told me I can stay with her in Scotland.
   
9. I bought real tomatoes (as compared to the fake tomatoes at the grocery store that I've decided I can no longer buy. They make me cry.) on the side of the road.
10. I got my deposit refund check from the house I just moved from.
11. The entire deposit was refunded, even though I killed the lawn, broke the lawn mower, broke the microwave, and didn't finish cleaning the oven before I left.
    
12. There is a very fine rerun of The Office on TV right now.
    
13. And I can watch it, because TV has returned to my life.
    

September

LOVE September.
Love the cooler temperature.
Love the peaches and apples at the farm stands.
Love the name September.
Love that the teenagers are back in school.

Have to run off to be an expert at a workshop now.

Marmot Babe

The Marmot Babe was blessed last Sunday. He wore a little white dress that my dad wore as a baby. Madame 5-yr-old was very concerned that her brother was wearing a dress. I assured her that baby boys have worn dresses for years and years and years. They like it. She remained unconvinced. Then Marmot Dad told me that he had male ancestors who wore dresses and long braids until they were 4 or 5-years-old. I'm thinking we should get Marmot Babe out of dresses before he hits preschool.

He's not looking his best and brightest here, but he seems okay with his dress. When he makes this face, he reminds me of a little chicken. I don't know why.

When Ignorance is NOT Bliss

I took my car in to have my oil changed on Friday. As is the way at this particular car place, one of the mechanics went over everything they were doing to my car and all the services I might want to have completed while I was there. I gave the okay for everything, they fixed up my car, they gave me my receipt, and I drove away. And then, at my next destination, I looked at the receipt with the notes about my service. After all the details about tire pressure and fluid levels, there was a little box with additional notes.

The notes read
Engine oil leak
Transmission oil leak

What!? Why were we talking about windshield wipers when I have ENGINE problems? No one said anything about this to me, but it seems like a big problem! Do any of you know about cars? Or know people who know about cars? Is my car going to die on the way to my out-of-town workshop on Tuesday?

Help!

The Shame Channel

So, if you're a regular reader of my blog, you'll be familiar with the many things I do that make me wonder how I've made it to the age of 30 without setting myself on fire. I'm just not so bright sometimes and my not-so-brightness often leads me into embarrassing situations. Fortunately, the embarrassment tends to be brief. Like tonight. I was going to dinner. My friend picked me up. As we were walking across the parking lot, my friend told me that he'd parked next to me. So I walked over to the truck in the parking space next to my car. My friend was following me and he watched me walk over to the passenger door, but he wasn't opening the truck door for me, which I thought was odd, because he's the kind of fellow who usually opens doors. I pulled the door handle to let myself in, but it was locked, and my friend was still not making any moves to let me into the truck. I stepped back and waited. Which is when he told me that his vehicle was the car parked on the OTHER side of my car. Good thing the truck wasn't unlocked, eh?

I Live with Cats

This is one of my roommate's cats. His name is Max. He is the fattest cat I have ever met. He has recently decided to be my best friend. And by best friend, I mean that he follows me around when my roommate's not home and meows at me to (a) pet him (b) open closed doors or (c) give him the food I'm eating. So, basically, he's the worst best friend I've ever had.


I'm hoping that after we've known one another longer, we can get past this needy phase, and he can start helping me solve crimes.

The Sheepdog Report

I attended the Soldier Hollow Sheepdog Championships yesterday. How I do love the sheepdogs. Sadly, this year we had weather issues at the event. Last year it was incredibly hot and we spent a lot of energy crouching under umbrellas to avoid the sun and fanning ourselves and holding ice against our burning skin and paying too much for cold, refreshing drinks. This year we spent a lot of time crouching under umbrellas to avoid the rain and hail and covering ourselves with blankets and huddling together for warmth and paying too much for hot chocolate. I didn't bring enough warm clothes, but, fortunately, Bank of the West was a sponsor of the event and they handed out stuffed, toy bears at the gate to two people in my group. Let me tell you, a couple of stuffed bears down your shirt is almost as good as wearing a second sweatshirt.

Herding in the rain.

Those bears were delightfully warm.

Note the ominous clouds in the background.

The weather cleared up in the afternoon and by the closing ceremonies, it was a beautiful day.

In Which I Farm ("Farm"), Part 2

Moo's family is very kind to indulge my need to do farm tasks badly. On Saturday I picked corn. I spent hours and days and weeks and months and years of my childhood picking and snapping green beans. And when I was older, my family picked strawberries and blueberries in the summers. I had never picked corn before, though. Moo's brother, FarmerBoy, drove me out to the field (giving me the option of reaching the corn by climbing a barbed wire fence or jumping a ditch) and showed me how to identify ripe ears and pick the corn and then proceeded to pick corn a billion times faster than I can. I picked about 130 years of corn. He picked a whole lot more than that.

ALSO

This is what picking corn sounds like when FarmerBoy does it:
whoosh. silence. whoosh. silence.

And this is what picking corn sounds like when MBC does it:
WHOP CRASH SWOSH

I am not graceful in a corn field.

Moo sent me home with corn and peaches AND her grandma's shoes. Three pairs from the '40s. They are FAN-tastic.

These are my favorites, even though they were designed to bend my feet in ways that nature did not intend.

My brother took some pictures of me wearing the shoes, but I was not smart and had him take them while I was standing on carpet that was close to the color of the shoes, so they didn't turn out well. Trust me, though, they're striking.

I wore the shoes to church with the Marmot Family (the Marmot Babe was blessed today; more on that later). When I got out of the car, Madame 5-yr-old exclaimed, "Oh, Aunt, your shoes are BEAUTIFUL," and Madame 3-yr-old informed me that she has shoes just like mine except that hers are white and decorated with butterflies. I find that claim highly unlikely. All the same, the shoes were a hit.