Category Archives: Food

ESTC Update

Gah.

Current word count stands at 46,746 and page count at 206 after tightening and polishing Chapter 4, which isn’t fully polished to my satisfaction but could be handed in like this. It’s something I can go back and fiddle with if I have time after everything else is done, and if I don’t, I’ll get it in the rewrites. (I hate thinking that. I want it done right the first time.)

Also, something I wrote in Chapter 4 today inspired a ritual that got written in Chapter 6. I orignally thought this ritual had to go into Chapter 7, but I was evidently on another planet at the time. So that’s been crossed off the list of things to do for Chapter 7, even though it shouldn’t have been there in the first place.

Tomorrow: Chapters 5 and 6. And since 6 is such a little thing, maybe some of 7. (The actual stuff that needs to be done in 7, I mean. Wow, I’m tired.)

I need to go find dinner. I think there’s leftover chili.

Schadenfreude Gathering

Someone described last night’s hangout here as a wake for people’s recently lost jobs, and I think it’s a good way to describe it. It’s been a dreadful week for a remarkably large number of people I know, and half a dozen of us kind of gravitated together to support friends. I made a huge pot of chili and garlic bread; Ceri made Schadenfreude Pie (schadenfreude being the German term for reveling in someone else’s misfortune, and to be perfectly clear we weren’t reveling in the misfortune of those who had been laid off, we were reveling in the misfortune of those who did the off-laying, because they lost excellent workers and will officially be up a creek without paddles or boats come Monday morning, but that’s their problem, isn’t it?); and Paze brought over some Bailey’s (both original and chocolate mint) and wings and Asian noodles. And for fourish hours we all sat on the floor and chatted and ate, and provided the right type of distraction for everyone, no matter what their week or job situation. The neighbours from upstairs drifted in. We actually got to see Scott, whose employer allowed him to leave the premises at a sane hour for once. The whiskey came out. We opened a bottle of Soave, courtesy of my FIL. We talked and talked and talked, in a companionable way that I haven’t enjoyed in, oh, ages. It’s good to be there for friends. That one has the opportunity to unwind at the same time — well, it was a really nice bonus.

It was a miserable day weather-wise yesterday afternoon as well, with the first official appearance of That White Stuff on top of nasty wind and cold cold rain, causing absolute havoc on the roads and forcing me to call my MIL to ask her to feed Liam dinner over there because I was stuck in Ville St-Laurent. When Liam eventually got home to see friends in the living room he took serious stock of the situation, then wandered around talking to cats and persons alike, sharing books and macaroni before going to bed (beautifully and calmly, hurrah, yes).

Mousme even managed to clip the claws of two cats while she was here. Nixie, The Deceptively Soft-Spoken Kitten From Hell, made it known in no uncertain terms that while Maggie and Cricket may have fallen to Mousme’s blade, she had no intention of going down until Mousme was lying in a pool of her own blood first. It was generally agreed that perhaps more Bailey’s ought to be enjoyed instead.

Despite the preponderance of badness in the lives of many this past while, we had something terribly, staggeringly nice happen to us this week. The people involved know how we feel, despite our sense of not being able to communicate just how thankful we are.

Oh, and the pie? Ye gods. I couldn’t even finish my slice. By this morning, the single piece left in the pie tin had begun bleeding a dark syrupy liquid. I fear it. But then, one really oughtn’t overly enjoy schadenfreude.

ESTC Update

Total word count, ESTC: 41,207
Total words today and yesterday: 1,172

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
41,207 / 50,000
(82.4%)

You know that whole dramatic “how will I ever fit all the info that has to go into Chapter Two into Chapter Two!” thing I’ve been wibbling and worrying about?

Short. Very, very short. Three pages of point form notes, which will probably expand to six once I write it out. Which leaves me lots of room for all the other stuff I want to write, like rituals in the final chapter and another three or so pages of meta stuff on rites of passage that belong in Chapter Two as well; all the things I wanted to include but was afraid wouldn’t fit. Yay me.

Oh, and I made pretzels this morning. Next time I’ll use one cup less flour and cut the sugar in the dough by maybe half. Very excellent nonetheless. But then, I’m a salt devotee, and I adore big dough pretzels.

And there’s nothing like the Colonial theme from the BSG season 2 soundtrack to get me motivated. Of course, it also has other associations for me, but damn, it’s a fine, fine piece of music.

Saturday Afternoon

Like some others, I am working today. This is one of the blessing/curses of the freelancer and the self-employed: you can work on the weekend to make up for lost time during the week. Of course, the other side of the coin is that sometimes you have to work on weekends when you really don’t want to.

Everyone slept in till eight o’clock this morning, which was absolutely delightful although not likely to become a regular thing. We went out to the craft shop where I picked up beeswax (finally!), new votive molds, and wick tabs. Then we picked up three new fish to add to Liam’s aquarium, three because we usually have a death rate of one within twenty-four hours, which would leave us with a total of one old and two new fish. There were two Abyssinian cats at the pet shop, lovely ruddy Abyssinians who were probably around eight months old. I wanted them, of course, but not as badly as I wanted the little green parrot-type bird who flirted with me through the glass of his cage. I so adore birds. I should stop looking at them in shops, because I fall in love with them and they with me and everyone’s heartbroken when I leave. Liam was positively ecstatic about the huge waterfall/koi pond whose front glass wall was as tall as he was. He could peek over the top at the surface of the water, or crouch down and stare at the fish eye to eye. Big fish, too, some of them half his size. And we saw tiny tiny little corn snakes, about the size of a pencil! They were adorable, and it was hard to believe that they would eventually be the size of the six-foot corn snakes upstairs. Of course, we have to go out again once Liam is awake, because I’ve just discovered that my printer’s ink cartridge is dead.

Tarasmas tonight! I have a lovely role in a serious radio drama. And I have a pot of stew on, which is making the whole house smell cosy and defended against the grey and sometimes-rainy afternoon outside.

Liam has now been asleep for two hours. If we can keep him busy till lunch then put him to bed right afterwards, he really embraces the whole one-long-nap thing. And… he just woke up!

Pause

Campbell’s Gardennay Red Pepper and Black Bean soup is remarkably yummy. Especially with a bit of fresh Parmesan Reggiano grated on it while it’s steaming hot. I foresee this being used as a basis for a variety of sauces for meats and pastas in my future, too.

You won’t be getting an ESTC update today, because I am immersed in doing a tech read/response for someone else’s MS. It’s very good. I won’t be finished by this evening, either, so I’ll have to finish it tomorrow. I’ll get to write again on Friday.

More Thanksgiving Goodness

Liam learned a new word today: corn. Some words he picks up so quickly, and applies them with such immediacy that it makes my head spin.

He was a big fan of it, both raw and cooked. It made for a nice, positive part of an otherwise very unhappy day for him, poor kid. Everything seemed to go wrong for him. Even when we couldn’t tell how it had gone wrong, he made sure to let us know he was unhappy about whatever it was. He didn’t want to eat, or drink, or lie down, or snuggle, or play, or read, or anything we suggested. And inevitably, when he decided on something to do, we had to stop him because it was going to either hurt him (and the number of really bad bruises on the left side of his face already point to what a klutz he’s been these past two days) or something else (like the cello, for example, because one does not pull up on the bridge, or hit the instrument with the bow, or attempt to pull the points of the f-holes out with bare hands).

Corn on the cob makes everything happy, though, even if it’s just for a little while. And although I put him down wide awake, he seems to have been content to quietly read his books to Bun-Bun (the toy formerly known as Presto, AKA the Magic Rabbit; Liam calls him Bun-Bun and that’s good enough for us) and fall asleep on his own.

Happy Thanksgiving

Fall is plaid flannel shirts, golden sunlight, and apples picked off the tree yesterday and handed to you by a farmer.


We are thankful for the beauty and the bounty of food that the earth provides, and for the farmers who bring it to us. We are thankful for the air we breathe, the water we drink, and for the fire that provides light and warmth in various forms.

We are thankful for friends and family (chosen and otherwise), for love and support, for freedom and (relatively good) health.

We are thankful for work, for time to play (even though it seems in very short supply these days), for snuggles and hugs, for cats who purr, for little boys who run and laugh, and for partners who are there to lean on.

And we are thankful for our spirituality, which provides a framework for expressing our feelings about the indefinable.

Thanks, world. You rock.