One of the perqs (no pun intended — oh, all right, yes it is) about having Karine working in the basement office is that she brews the most delicious-smelling decaf coffee that leaps out and clings to one’s soul when one goes down to switch the laundry, saying, Drink me! Drink me! .
And she shares it.
Happy Lughnassadh, everyone! Yes, it took me a while to understand why I’d had an odd desire to bake bread over the past week, what with the ridiculous heat and humidity, but when I finally clued in yesterday I cheerfully whipped up a batch of my herb bread. Every single herb in it came out of the back garden. Rosemary, lemon thyme, oregano, onions — everything. And I made it with whole wheat flour, because it’s what I had. I’ve never used entirely whole wheat flour for it before; in the past I’ve blended one-third whole wheat to two-thirds white, but the recipe creates a heavyish bread to begin with so I wasn’t drawn to replacing more. The whole wheat flour made it even heavier, and added a nice nutty flavour. It’s definitely something I’ll need to be in the mood for, though.
I got my contracts in the mail today, both for ESTC and the series editorship. So hurrah, it’s poring over dense prose tonight with a pair of glasses and a pencil to make sure all’s in order before I sign them and ship them back.
We had a tremendously violent storm last night, which was exciting once we’d unplugged everything and HRH had done his weather-thingy to stop the funnel cloud from fully forming a few blocks away. (Yeah, not so fun, looking off your back porch to see the clouds circling like that, and feeling the downdraft begin. Good thing I live with a weather god.) Our upstairs neighbours brought down ice cream and cream soda and frozen raspberries for floats, and after everyone had provided HRH with the energy necessary to fight the bad things off without totally killing himself, we all sat in the kitchen to drink them by candlelight while we listened to the storm play out. Lots of mess and damage around the island, we noticed this morning. Some parts of our borough still don’t have power.
This morning Scarlet and I took a short trip out to an art supply store in the East End we’d never visited before, and I finally came home with candlemaking supplies. It’s good, because I’ve been dying to pour new candles to use while I write this book; it’s important, for some reason. I have vegetable wax, since they didn’t have beeswax beads and I didn’t feel like hacking at a beeswax block. I’ve never worked with it before, but I’m looking forward to trying something new.
Okay. I’ve done work-related research and correspondence, and some adjusting of my TOC, and a brief look through the contracts. Time to get going on the MS itself.
I am in complete and total gourmand heaven. Rajura introduced me to Juliette et Chocolat today at lunch, a creperie and chocolaterie on St-Denis street. My tomato-mushroom-Gruyere crepe was perfect, and the mi-amer chocolat noir to drink was literally like drinking thick, smooth, liquid chocolate. It took forever to pour into my cup!
We talked and talked and talked, and would probably still be there if I hadn’t realised that I had to get back to the public lot at the metro station to reclaim my car before my parking pass ran out. I made a quick stop at Archambault to pick up a CD but they didn’t have it. They did, however, have a big promotional display of francophone Quebecois(e) artists who record under the Tacca label, so I got the only Jorane CD I was missing for ten dollars. A good buy, and really what I was in the mood for, I discover now as I listen to it.
Now I’m going to log off and unplug the computer because we are having a delightful thunderstorm. Good thing the book’s at a point where I can work things out in my notebook.
The air conditioner has been turned off, and we have thrown open every window we can throw open. It’s lovely and cool, a bit damp because of the rain, perhaps, but such a pleasant change from the oppressive and dangerous high heat and humidity. Plus it’s quieter. The humidity will be back tomorrow, so I’m appreciating this as much as I can today before we have to close everything up and turn the machine back on.
More tomato melts this morning for brunch, made with ai731‘s lovely and delicious garden tomatoes. We have a scattering of green tomatoes in our own garden that we’re waiting for, plus darling little cucumbers and alarmingly large squash for their age, for which we’ve constructed little frames so they won’t rot on the ground before they even ripen as they did last year. The leaves are over a foot and a half in diameter already. The onions seem to be doing quite well, too. Now, if the wave petunias in the front planters would just, well, wave properly, I think we’d be almost one hundred percent satisfied with this year’s garden.
And now, having eaten two tomato melts on English muffins, I find that I am ravenous and must go make more.
Before I do, I will take the time to congratulate Talyesin on the hundredth and final serial installment of Squirrelman: Sins of the Past, his weekly serialized webnovel. Go read it.
Wow — a busy busy weekend. There was lots of ritual and energy work. I facilitated the last level 4 class on Saturday afternoon, and the students handled two very challenging energy exercises with grace and aplomb. On Sunday we conducted an elevation ritual for one of our coveners, and that went spectacularly well too, both in general and on the part of the covener, of whose demonstrated work and skills we are so very very proud. The weekend was busy in an everyday sort of way too. On Friday night Liam’s godparents brought dinner over to our place and watched Liam while I went out to pick up HRH from work. When we returned they’d pulled the table out and set it beautifully, so all we had to do was sit down and eat once Liam was in bed. We had a lovely relaxing evening; it was a real treat. There was even birthday cake, the candles on which my goddaughter helped me to blow out. Saturday morning was band, of course, which was cut short when the power went out due to the nasty storm that swept through the city. Being an acoustic-based band, we simply propped open the door and went merrily back to playing songs on our setlist in the dark, but the lack of fans circulating the air drove us out after about ten minutes, alas. Sunday morning saw us picking up new plexiglass to fill in the rest of the kitchen window above the air conditioner (yes, we’ve moved it from the bedroom to the kitchen to facilitate the circulation of the cool air through the living area) and a new air conditioning unit for the Baronial residence.
Now we all need a day to recover from the weekend. And I sort of have one! Yes, today is Liam’s first full day over at his home daycare! We are both very excited. There are friendly cats, excellent toys, a cool caregiver, a hamster and rats to look at, and a turtle. What more could a chipper and social and inquisitive little boy want?
The morning visit with the daycare last Friday morning went tremendously well. The only problem we ran into was the early afternoon nap, where he was just too excited to settle down for milk or sleep, so we headed for home. He ended up falling asleep in the car five minutes before we reached the house, and I foolishly unpacked him thinking he’d fall asleep again after nursing. He didn’t, of course, so that was the total of the afternoon nap, and on top of only forty minutes of nap time earlier that morning, too. Today, however, he has his playpen in which to nap, plus his Magic Rabbit nap buddy and the crocheted afghan his great-gran made for him to help him think of being asleep in his own bed at home. He’ll eventually nap once he plays himself out, despite being in an exciting new environment. So he’s in two days a week for now, which gives me time to get my current work done.
When we were over playing there on Friday, Liam did something mildly freaky. There are baskets of toys on the lower shelf of the playroom, and I thought I’d teach him something new. “Where’s the tiger, Liam?” I said from a few feet away. “Where’s the tiger?” He turned to look at the baskets of toys, and I figured that after asking him again I’d reach over and pick up the little plastic tiger and show it to him. But before I could he reached over and grabbed the tiger toy, then turned back to face me with a “Yeah, this is the tiger, so?” look on his face. “That’s right, that’s the tiger,” I said, and when he looked down to turn it over and over in his hands and examine it, I freaked out quietly at Prospero’s Daughter, because he’s only ever seen a minute or so of a tiger on one of his videos that we’ve played for him maybe four or five times in his life, and it’s not one of the words we’ve been teaching him. Part of me thinks it must be the group mind thing, because I was visualising that little tiger toy and its position pretty hard while I was talking to him. Very cool.
Liam is now narrating our car rides, which is quite entertaining. “Car. Car. Car,” he says, pointing out the window at the other vehicles on the highway as they pass. Every once in a while he says, “Truck,” pointing at a cube van or a semi. And he flirts with people at stoplights, giving them huge grins and talking away to them. The awesome thing is that most people smile back, and chat or wave through the window. Some parents move their vehicles a little forward or back so that their child in the back seat can see and wave at Liam too. While the majority of the time these days I think the population in general sucks, sometimes people can be pretty cool.
So this is my first grown-up day of work with the boy in daycare. I have a proposed table of contents to polish and send off to another editor, a bit of correspondence to handle, some developmental work to do, and laundry to keep doing. I already stopped off on the way home to pick up some new tank tops (although no capris, alas, which were also on my list) and a few groceries.
I should add “eating” to my to-do list, because I haven’t had any appetite over the past three days. It’s just been too dreadfully hot and humid, and eating in weather like this makes me feel ill.
Today was our first day of the cooperative vegetable basket program, done in conjunction with a local farm. We got lettuce, basil, chives, shallots, peas in the pod, cherry tomatoes, flaxseed, fresh eggs, and cucumber. After dividing it all with the upstairs neighbours, I proceeded to eat over half my share of the fresh peas and all but three of my cherry tomatoes, plus some basil and chives, while we chatted. (Hey, lunch was a very long time ago, and I have no idea when HRH will be home for dinner.)
It was a small basket this week, but so good. Eggs! Without requesting them! And this after a chicken tragedy earlier in the farm’s season courtesy of a fox, so the farm had no idea if they’d be able to provide eggs at all this summer. I hope it’s a steady thing. They had extra, so Scarlet bought a second dozen so we wouldn’t have to split the dozen that came in the basket.
I’m so looking forward to scrambling a fresh egg for Liam’s lunch tomorrow, and making a little omelette for myself.