I have been taking classes at a bikram yoga studio, and it's really quite awesome. During the week, the classes are offered conveniently at 4:30 and 7, and there's also a morning a class. They are right around the corner from my store, so it's often easy to go there right after work, or if I stay late I can go to the later class.

Bikram yoga is also known as "hot yoga," and I always thought that I'd like it. The room is kept at 100 degrees, and you sweat like crazytown, and that helps you stretch, and it helps all the toxins just pour out of your body. I love it. It ends up being more aerobic almost, because your heart rate gets up there with the heat, but at the same time, it's incredibly relaxing. I've gone three times in the last week and a half. I was going to hit the morning class today, but my throat is really sore, and all that breathing might be a bit much today. Still, if I don't get there today, I won't make it until next Monday (weekend classes aren't convenient for my schedule), so I hope I really go on Monday.

Ever since the yoga I've been sleeping much better...especially on days I have class, but really most days. It's nice.

What's the last thing you ate?
apple bread sill warm.

What's your favorite cheese?
something hard & nutty...like manchego or a cheddar with little crystallized bits

What's your favorite fish?
tilapia made by my husband or tuna out of a can

What's your favorite fruit?
any that I've picked myself, but especially mulberries

When, if ever, did you start liking olives?
the only time I've enjoyed them is when heavily marinated with herbs

When, if ever, did you start liking beer?
I went to college in Wisconsin, so probably then...I can't tolerate the really heady ones...they congest me.

When, if ever, did you start liking shellfish?
I never liked it growing up. In my 20s I started to branch out and learned that I really like shrimp but am really allergic to it.

What was the best thing your parent/s used to make?
I have a really early memory of scrambled eggs my mom made with bits of ham (or probably baloney) with ketchup.

What's the native specialty of your home town?
Well, Maine is all about that shellfish, but my town---Hebron---had an awful lot of apple orchards, including the one of I grew up on.

What's your comfort food?
Bad carbs: instant oatmeal, spaghettios, potatoes fried or mashed.

What's your favorite type of chocolate?
Vosges with salt.

How do you like your steak?
I don't.

How do you like your burger?
Again, no.

How do you like your eggs?
Scrambled or in an omelette, though I usually prepare frittatae.

How do you like your potatoes?
Like them? I love them, but especially babies out of the ground with salt and butter.

How do you take your coffee?
At home in the French press; on the road as an americano.

How do you take your tea?
On rare occasions make take a bit of milk in sugar in Early Grey & Yorkshire Gold. Almost daily I drink cups of herbal tea, usually ginger.

What's your favorite mug?
It has a wide handle and lip and is white stoneware.

What's your cookie of choice?
Lu's Pim's or Petit Ecolier.

What's your ideal breakfast?
fresh fruit

What's your ideal sandwich?
BLT with turkey bacon, crusty bread, tomatoes & basil from the garden.

What's your ideal pizza (topping and base)?
super-thin margherita

What's your ideal pie (sweet or savory)?
generally partial to fruit pies, but I'll eat most any

What's your ideal salad?
lately arugula, feta, & beets is very popular in this household

What food do you always like to have in the fridge?
eggs, yogurt, at least two kinds of greens, fizzy water, carrots, onions, garlic, feta, ginger, catnip, butter, opened jars of condiments that are rarely consumed before spoiling, pickles

What food do you always like to have in the freezer?
chicken broth, butter, corn

What food do you always like to have in the cupboard?
dried beans, canned tomatoes, instant oatmeal, canned chickpeas, sugar, flour, mustard, walnuts, almonds, rice, baked beans, olive oil, honey, maple syrup, vinegars, popcorn

What spices can you not live without?
salt, pepper, herbes de provences, oregano, cinnamon, nutmeg

What sauces can you not live without?
tomato sauce, mustard

Where do you buy most of your food?
Whole Foods is the most consistent stop right now...seems extravagant, but I know where the deals are & I always have coupons.

How often do you go food shopping?
1-7 x week...not very consistent.

What's the most you've spent on a single food item?
I don't know, probably that very occasional $40 or $50 bottle of wine

What's the most expensive piece of kitchen equipment you own?
probably the KitchenAid

What's the last piece of equipment you bought for your kitchen?
some earthenware bean pots at a thrift store

What piece of kitchen equipment could you not live without?
tea kettle or juicer or various coffee accessories

How many times a week/month do you cook from raw ingredients?
almost daily, though certainly more in summer

What's the last thing you cooked from raw ingredients?
depending on the definition of "cooked from raw," made a lasagna from scratch last night

What's your favorite thing to make for yourself?
bruschetta

What meats have you eaten besides cow, pig, chicken and turkey?
just rabbit

What's the last time you ate something that had fallen on the floor?
I generally don't

What's the last time you ate something you'd picked in the wild?
this summer I picked lots of mulberries on the path near our house

Place the following cuisines in order of preference (greatest to least):
Indian, Italian, Thai, French, Chinese, sushi

Place the following boozes in order of preference (greatest to least):
rum, vodka, gin

Place the following flavors in order of preference (greatest to least):
ginger, garlic, basil, lime, aniseed...I don't know, this might be a five-way tie

Place the following fruits in order of preference (greatest to least):
orange, cherry, apple, pineapple, banana, watermelon

Bread and spread:
anything crusty with salty butter

What's your fast food restaurant of choice, and what do you usually order?
I hate Panda Express but I keep eating there because it's handy near work. Sometimes Chipotle is a guilty pleasure.

What are three of the best dining-out experiences you've had?

Amato's, Portland, Maine...seriously, but it has to be the one on India Street
Isabella's in Geneva, Illinois, best Zagat-rated Mediterranean restaurant in Chicagoland
Zuni Cafe, San Francisco: they know gnocchi...and everything else

What's your choice of tipple at the end of a long day?
red wine

Favorite cookbook/s?
Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone is the one I always go back to, and there are so many

Got any favorite food blogs?
too many to mention

What's the next thing you'll eat?
an americano from Starbucks in four hours

My goodness, I've been busy. I started at my new store yesterday and am still figuring out how I intend to progress. Last week I wrapped up at Oak Brook, and that whole process ended up being more emotional than I'd expected. My job there is to kind of be a bitch sometimes, and as a result I really have to distance myself from people, keep clear professional boundaries to be fair. I found it really touching for me to hear people genuinely express sadness about my leaving and that they'd miss me. I felt a bit choked up. Damn PMS.

N returned to school last week, and he's much busier than past semesters, in part, because he's working two jobs, though both are on campus. His schedule is such that he's gone for large blocks of time, not coming home for lunch as he used to. I'll be working more days, so at least our time at home will sometimes coincide. N was actually gone for a chunk of the weekend to Springfield. I couldn't go, and his absence totally sucked, but now he's home. This evening we went for a long walk, then ate some late summer bounty (all local), and watched Tony Bourdain. Now he's working a bit, and I'm mentally plotting my tomorrow.

Last night I watched Starting Out in the Evening, a movie about a grad student who befriends the old writer about whom she's writing her thesis, attempting to get his books back in print. She also toys with him and is generally annoying. Lily Taylor had a great performance as the writer's daughter. Though the plot-line was predictable, it was great to sink my brain into something else for a bit. These days I need a bit of escapism to unwind at the end of the day...I'm thinking exercise...

And I checked out another business book today about urgency. When did I become such a dork?

I got a dress to wear to next weekend's wedding. It's chocolate brown with sort of camel-colored dots on it. It's sleeveless but has a high enough neck that I don't have to keep sticking the girls back in like I did with the blue shift. It's made out of a crepe material that flows really nicely and has gathers in the material that I don't really know how to explain. Anyhoo, I found it for cheap at JCPenney and then found two-toned sort of saddle shoe pumps in the exact same two colors for a steal at Marshalls. The heels are way higher than what I'm used to wearing but were surprisingly comfortable during the ten minutes I pranced around the house. So not only do I have something to wear, but I feel rather all put together. I was really trying to avoid wearing black, which looks formal and elegant, but I don't really find appropriate for a wedding, even though folks wear black to weddings all the time. I wanted something elegant, but I wanted something that would look good on me, and found myself trying on these lame dupioni two-piece numbers with embroidery that were way too mother-of-the-bride, and I feared after visiting half a dozen stores that I'd NEVER find the right dress. I'm so glad it happened...with a week to spare, even.

In other news, we are enjoying some really good tomatoes right now.

And soon, I can announce the excitement going on at work.

Don't ask me where this genius inspiration originated, but if you melt a little butter and drizzle it over popcorn, then shake over it a bunch of Buttermilk Dressing Base from The Spice House, truly mind-boggling things will happen. You'll want a second bowl. You'll feel guilty that your husband is coming home in two hours and is looking forward to a nice (full) meal with you. Oh, dear. It's soooooooooooo good!

I went out in search of an addition to our sad, rickety, mismatched dining room chair collection today. I was hoping to find a couple of sturdy ones, hoping to retire the most fragile of the current collection. I guess I succeeded in finding one that was nominally superior to the painted blue Ikea chair that's about to go any minute now. The replacement was also five bucks, score. I dawdled around other garage sales, but the rain came, and the afternoon was abbreviated for the yard merchants.

I went out to that little farm in Elburn where I usually go in winter. It's a tiny hike, but I missed the farmers market this morning. I bought butter, eggs, stripey tomatoes, and yummy lettuce, a couple zinnias, milk in a virtuous glass bottle. I continued the chair hunt in thrift stores but to no avail.

I think I may read for an hour before dinner making commences.

I'm making dinner after work tomorrow, trying to figure that all out. I think there'll be corn on the cob and a salad of heirloom tomatoes and some little green beans, maybe with pesto. There'll be a plate of cheeses. Do I need to toast some crusty bread? Oh, maybe, but not if I have new potatoes, and I do. Hmmm. Bread or no bread? Bread or no bread? Oh, and I made blueberry pie for dessert. Just three of us, don't know why there's so much food. And wine.

My husband really nailed the verbal part of the GRE today. He's smart like that. Of course, we also studied the heck out of vocabulary. I say, "we" because I was the quizmaster. So, the efforts paid off, perhaps made those analogies and opposites go a little faster.

It feels like I spent the day chasing my tail. We got new flatware, but after one washing it's rusting! What the fuck? It's supposed to be "stainless," not stained with rust. I'm really irritated, and it's the second time in a week I've had to go be the disgruntled customer to get something taken care of. Hey, these things happen, right? But take care of it, customer service people. For crying out loud! Take care of it. Don't make me mad, because then in my efforts to try and be patient with you, I'll sound really condescending and sarcastic, and then nobody wins. OK, I haven't made the flatware call yet, but you know when I will, that we're going to need some pretty serious resolution pretty freaking fast.

It's probably time I got some sleep.

By 9:30 this morning (mind you, I slept in 'til after 8), I was pretty exhausted already. Earlier I had walked down to the farmers' market by myself, and hauled back the kind of load that N & I usually carry together: a dozen ears of corn, a few tomatoes, a few peppers, two pints of tiny new potatoes, two bunches of beets, a baguette, two pints of blueberries, a dozen eggs. Where to next? I should go shopping for some strappy, heely, formally shoes to wear later in the month and some sort of pashmina or something, but at the moment I just want to be at home. It looks like some sort of bomb went off in the kitchen/living room. I need to reconfigure the refrigerator, get that oregano plant in the ground, pick some beans. I may need to make more pesto, too, as the basil is getting out of control.

Last weekend was absolutely delightful. We ate some good food and drank some good wine and celebrated our first year or marriage. Because we never had a wedding ceremony, some of our family and friends joined us to mark the event. It was one of those occasions where you never get to talk to everyone as much as you would like. During the weeks leading up you obsess over ridiculous details and allow them to stress you out to a ridiculous degree, but on that day, it's too late. You just give in to whatever happens, and you're not even stifling the stress, it's just gone. The occasion is too joyous to let anything trouble you.

Right now I'm really grateful to get to spend the next couple of evenings with my husband, eating from the peak of harvest. It's the perfect, most bittersweet time of year. Everything is available to eat, though in a matter of mere weeks this crazy heat will be replaced by a crispness in the air. The sandals won't go away yet, but the sweaters might come out, and we'll fall along that cozy little descent toward the winter.

Wow, lots of stuff going on. Last night N & I went out to see The Dark Knight, and I'll tell you what: I think I'm too old to watch blockbusters on the big screen. They're too loud, I can't handle all the violence, the crazy scenes involving heights when they're so superbig. That said, it was a good movie, well executed. It was so hyped that I didn't think it could possibly live up to my expectations, but I think it did, especially the Joker, especially his scene as he's leaving the hospital. When I left the theater, not only had I been grinding my teeth unknowingly, but I'd been grinding every bone in my body against another, way too tense, with my heart beating way too fast. We came home & N drew me a bath to help me relax. He's good that way.

Before the movie, we went out to the nearby California Pizza Kitchen. I had a disappointing salad, and a sense of deja vu that I'd once before gotten the same salad to the same disappointment. I think I love the bbq chicken pizza, but I was feeling like a salad, so I went for the bbq chicken salad. Eh, it was just OK really. Next time I should remember where I am and just get the pizza already.

On Monday I temporarily lost my mind and made 45 jars of strawberry jam. I had just discovered the beautiful Italian grocery, Caputo's, and their strawberries were so cheap, no doubt on their last legs. I scooped them up, took them home, and cooked them down with pectin and sugar. It took me all day, but it was worth it. I need to make some other preserves to give as holiday gifts this year, 'cause I can't imagine what else we will be able to afford to give anyone.

I need to get some laundry in the dryer, some me in the shower, do a dry cleaning swap, and maybe a Bed Bath & Beyond run before work. Oh, cripes, what am I bringing to work for dinner? Some days I wish I had an assistant or at least that the cats would be a tad more willing to run an errand or two when asked. God forbid they should postpone naptime.

Last night I brought home some split chicken breasts, gorgeous and huge, that I somehow found for a song. I'm guessing that they were approaching their date of turning, but no matter, we had them right away. I marinated them in red wine vinegar and lemon salt for a couple of hours, then N threw them on the grill. Next I boiled beets which I sliced and cooled, then threw into a salad with arugula and feta. I didn't dress them too much as N complained of a canker sore. Just a bit of olive oil on them was fine, as the salty feta crumbled and added to the overall flavor. I also boiled some wax beans that I picked up at the market on Saturday. I have asparagus and zucchini that still needed to be eaten, will figure something out there.

It is my day off, and the weather is a bit depressing. I really have a lot of errands I could stand to do today, though I feel uninspired, despite a great night's sleep. Oh well, no bother, I'll take a shower, have coffee, and put on some great music. Hopefully this will motivate...

Last Friday, I read about which local Starbucks were closing, and I noticed that one was very close to my store. I ran down there all suave and professional with my card, ready to poach some employees to come work for me, but I'd forgotten I knew the manager there! She was a former Borders manager, and she said that they all had jobs already thanks. Damn it. More importantly, she used to date N's best friend, and that didn't end well. I scooped up my americano and got the hell out of there, except I couldn't, as the location is awkwardly located at a busy intersection, and it's impossible to get out of there. No wonder they're closing. Eventually I made it to work, supercaffeinated.

Today I'm going to check out Caputo's, a local Italian market chain. I want to see what they have for basil, as I might buy a ton on Saturday. More on that later...

I'm feeling kind of uninspired today, which is too bad, as there's lots to do. I went out and watered the garden, and picked me some nice ripe tomatoes! There are tiny, tiny beans that will be ready in a week. I'd say two weeks at least on the snap peas. The basil and thyme are growing like mad, and there are peppers just barely starting to fruit: bells & chilies both.

Everything I attempt today has road blocks, except bill paying. Of course, it's always easy as pie to give someone money. I suppose it leaves me with some satisfaction at having paid my bills, some. Very little, really. I made some headway filing bills and things, attaching reminders to the calendar.

I have many thank you notes to write, and I collected my various notes but cannot find my address book so I'm a bit stuck in that department.

Yesterday I took in oodles of dry cleaning, prepping the winter stuff. I went through the laundry.

I guess that's all. Looking to see N in two hours but a few minutes, then off to work.

Well, I have returned from the Maine-land. In fact, we came home about forty-eight hours ago, but let's stop right there, because I'd hate for you to hear about the disaster we encountered upon our return. Let's talk vacay instead.

Too much to remember here, but there was really good food to be had. There was a trip on a boat to a little island for clambakes and raspberrying. There was that annual dinner at the best Thai restaurant in the world. Many Italians were consumed at Amato's. An anniversary party was thrown for N & me by my mom. There was a drive on the Kancamangus highway to view the White Mtns of New Hampshire (and more [covert] raspberrying), there was a Moxie parade. There was parading around Portland. A trip to Popham Beach. Meeting up with friends I haven't seen since 1999 and 1988. Ice cream, ice cream, ice cream. Visiting with another friend, The Goat Cheese Lady. Regarding my sixteen-month-old nephew in awe as he communicates so effectively with such a sparse vocabulary.

Hauling home six pounds of honey. In a glass mason jar. In my suitcase. Yup.

To ease the shock of our return, after a full day at work yesterday, N and I met up to dine at the Cellar Bistro and splurged on a very lovely dinner. We began with bruschetta (so much!) and a spicy sangiovese, then moved on to salads. He had salmon with a mustard dill sauce and asparagus, polenta. I had chicken slow-cooked with prunes, capers, brown sugar, and other delights. There were some so-so carrots and lovely roasted potatoes. We had glasses of pinot noir. There was another menu I might want to try on another visit. You make your own little plate by choosing various cheeses, breads, nuts & olives, vegetables, and condiments. The owner of the joint worked the bar and brought us our wines in tiny carafes. He was very pleasant and attentive, focused on bringing natural, healthy cooking to the area: no preservatives, lots of local produce, cheeses & meats, organic when possible, no microwave on the premises. Yes, my kind of place.

So much running around...yesterday evening I threw together some "Moroccan" food; quotes are necessary, as I've never had true Moroccan food, so who knows what I truly made: some chicken with olives & lemons, saffron, cinnamon, & garlic; couscous with roasted tomatoes & peppers, wilted onions; a salad of oranges and roasted beets. We fed Ek & Michelle. Oh, there was also a strawberry-blueberry pie, but the whole wheat crust lacked a certain je ne sais quoi. Later I got my ass kicked in Scrabble. The humiliation!

The neighbors have a mulberry tree. The mulberries just fall on the sidewalk. These are the unfriendly neighbors. I'd like to pilfer the mulberries (they're damn jewels)...they wouldn't care...but there's never a good opportunity.

Tomorrow I go to work, then turn around, come home and pack. We'll be in Maine for a week. It's about time I had a vacation. Seriously, I just run and run and run, as does N. I can't wait to relax. Spending time with my parents is rarely relaxing, but a day or two at the beach could be pretty chill.

By the way, these are like my dream flowers. They're all warm and harvesty. I think my tastes are really quite simple.

Today I met with the florist, and that was quite lovely. I talked about my impatience with gerber daisies and red roses, and she seemed to be on the same page. There will be glads and belles of Ireland and hypernicum and spray roses and lilies and stuff. I did not dig in my heals and insist on dahlias, because I know they can be pricey. Ooh, we talked about my favorite kinds of asters, and she told me the proper name for them...I forget. I'll have to check my notes. I did not tell her about my desire for basil in the arrangements. Professionals don't respond well to that. There has to be a give and take with these creative types. I'm the client, not the creative, so I try to let them do their job. The problem, of course, is that I want to be doing their job. I try to be gracious, though. They are doing a service so I can just hang out and relax.

My dress came today, too. Months ago, I'd thought about busting out a few bucks on something from Anthropologie or Betsey Johnson, but back in reality, I bought a simple little shift kinda thing from Eddie Bauer (waited 'til it went on clearance), all dobby weaves and A-lines. It's a really flattering shade of blue that I frequently forget is a good color for me, will be a nice contrast around all the orange and yellow flowers. It's sleeveless, though, and I will need to get my arms back to human proportions. Seriously, the dress fits well, but I don't think I can afford to gain another pound.

I worked a bunch, and now I'm wired. N was up at 3 a.m. and passed out twenty-two hours later. I hope he's not overdoing it. He works so hard, and I worry about him.

Any moment now, I'm going to get ridiculously tired and fall into bed.

*bruschette alla romano
*assorted pizze

*insalata della casa

*gnocchi con ricota

*pollo alla romano

*tiramisu

montepulciano/pinot grigio/san pellegrino/caffe


Done? Now back to flowers.

Oh, dear, long time, no post. Let's see, last weekend we went to Springfield for N's grandparents' sixty-fifth anniversary party, and what a party it was. A day-long catered event complete with pool and lake access and many small children. The whole weekend was well-timed, less rushing than some visits and time with the grandparents, of course. We also spent a bit of time with N's father's cousin, Cheryl, who is introducing us to a slew of cousins of that side of the family via facebook. Her son and his wife are graduates of the CIA and apparently great foodies. We may head south to Kansas City soon to meet up with some of these cousins.

Whether it was meeting up with these cousins, talking to the grandparents about their families, or watching so many episodes of John Adams, something rekindled my interest in my own genealogy. My mother's grandparents (all four) came to this country at the turn of the century from a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire that would soon become Czechoslovakia and is now Slovakia (which has no relation to Slovenia, by the way, despite common confusion regarding this matter). Aside from some reported dialogues with my great-grandmother during childhood, I don't speak Slovak, and I don't know exactly where the family is from, so I wouldn't know how to start researching my family over there.

Closer to home, we have the other side of my family, the paternal side, which I always thought would be even more challenging to dissect. As some of you may recall from the occasional mention, my biological father chose to walk out some time within the first year of my life (though reportedly not before kindly kidnapping me for two weeks, but that's a whole other adventure for another time), and as a result I haven't had any connection with him or his family for the last thirty-six years. A few years after his disappearance, my mother remarried, my stepfather adopted me, and I've had a new last name ever since. I do think about contacting James on occasion, but I can never identify what I hope to gain from such a reunion, so I never make the quest a priority, despite curiosity about my own heritage if nothing else.

And my real last name, it's not super common. You don't hear it a lot. Still, I started playing around on various websites of public records, and I found records as far back as 1757. Even today, there's a great concentration of that family in Essex County, Massachusetts. Back in the day, I had family who gave their lives in the Revolutionary war. I had family who worked as blacksmiths and "morocco colorers" (as best I can tell, this is someone who dyes leather, perhaps for shoes?). I first find record of my family in Marblehead, but then also there's a branch in Plymouth County whose roots I trace back nearly as far. Marblehead was a great port and the forerunners of the US Navy actually sprung from there. Naturally, building sea vessels became a successful industry there. It seems that Marblehead was also one of the first slave ports, having built the first slave ship, and while I haven't studied trade routes very much, perhaps this relates to the large population sharing my last name in Trinidad, Tobago, St. Vincent, and the Grenandines.

Marblehead was originally a plantation of Salem, and eventually got its independence from it, as many fled the wrath of the Puritans leading that settlement. A generation or two later, though, you see my family in Salem. They remained cobblers, soldiers, couriers, and oh, yes, they would have been present for the Witch Trial hysteria, though I've seen no record of their involvement on either side. They had common first names like John, Annie, Hannah, Mary, Abby, Benjamin, Charles, Eliza, Thomas, Robert. They died fighting for the Union again during the Civil War. In the twentieth century, while many have moved away, there are still plenty in Beverly, Danvers, Winthrop, Salem, Lynn, Wenham, and Peabody. A disconcerting detail is that many in the twentieth century have died young. Indeed, Anthony who was born a mere two years before me died in his early thirties. Arthur died in the 60s at 45. Francis in 1971 at 43, Paul in 2004 at 48, and Thomas in 1994 at 49. To hear my mother tell it, they were all alcoholics, but perhaps there is some genetic reason why many in my family have lived seemingly short lives.

I intend to get to the bottom of this if I can.

I was of the impression that I was accent-free. Um, but if it's accurate, why complain?


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What American accent do you have? Your Result: Boston   You definitely have a Boston accent, even if you think you don't. Of course, that doesn't mean you are from the Boston area, you may also be from New Hampshire or Maine.
The Midland
The West
North Central
The Northeast
Philadelphia
The Inland North
The South
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

So, I put more tomato, basil, and thyme in the ground. I did this because I bought the plants yesterday, and they need to go somewhere. My concern is that the nearby tree, which the City of Wheaton says has Dutch Elm disease and must come down within thirty days (thank you certified mail from yesterday), will land on top of these tender plants and I will be angry, angry, angry. Angry because that's not where I wanted to put the garden, but where the landlord insisted it would get the best light, angry because at every turn this garden has been a challenge: first I don't buy seeds to start because I get a message from said landlord saying his family is starting seeds at home to put into the garden, then angry because said seedlings never seem to make it over here, so it's suddenly my responsibility after all. Ugh, and now the peas and beans are gorgeous and six inches tall, what's to be done? Theoretically, the tomatoes, peppers, and herbs might survive a transplanting into pots, but not the peas and beans! I give up. Am I never meant to have a garden?

I also picked up branch after branch after branch that fell from the trees during our Sunday weather extravaganza. I think some of the piles of brush and wood in our backyard should be dry enough to use as firewood this winter. How sweet would that be?

Now I am thinking about getting cleaned up and walking downtown to chat with a florist. My step-mother-in-law would like to help out with the flowers for our anniversary party this summer. Going on-line was fairly useless, most places default to a FTD list of bouquets. I wish I knew of a wholesale flower supply around here. I miss the Bay Area sometimes. Maybe I can just order some flowers and do it myself. What I want are some pretty summer reds and oranges: dahlias, calendulas, an aster or two, and nice bits of green, some spicy basil and a few other herbs maybe. That is really what I want. No corsages, but flowers on the tables, and maybe a big monster of an arrangement when you first walk in. I know what I don't want: no gerber daisies, no carnations, no roses. Ooh, gladiolas might be nice, especially for the big arrangement.

So many things to think about.

I am exhausted! N's getting up at 3:30 to open the Starbucks drive-thru is kinda intense, but he's doing it! No pity party for me, 'cause I slept in 'til 6. I went in to work for just a couple of hours this morning to tie up a couple specific things. I'm now off 'til Wednesday afternoon, then I work for two days and get a four-day weekend. I may have induced a mini-coma by indulging in leftover sesame chicken from yesterday's takeout experiment. I haven't eaten Chinese food much over the last few years, having had my tastes redirected during my stint in the Bay Area. This was decent, though, and they deliver, always a plus. They also delivered it very quickly.

Our power was off for most of the day yesterday, following the hurricane treatment we received in the morning. Aggressive rain coupled with violent wind meant many a branch was dumped about the street and such. At work, a tree branch went through someone's car window! I'm still trying to determine if the liability is with us, the property owners, or if we're talking "act of God" here.

Fortunately, sandwiched between a week's worth of humid thunderstorms and yesterday's tsunami was Saturday, pleasant and lovely, and that was the day my boss got married. She looked stunning and radiant on the arm of her groom, and her little shih tzu wore a tux, too. I am alarmed and amused to report this, but mostly amused, because you know if my cats would tolerate such adornment, I might try to similarly torture them. Cats know better, though, and dogs might but are more interested in pleasing humans, so they do what it takes. Another great detail about this wedding: my boss wrote a little fairly tale about the incident that initiated the courting/engagement/marriage, and it was read by a dear friend of the couple. Also, the pear tatin with berries, vanilla bean ice cream, and caramel drizzle: delightful.

I think I'll pass out until N comes home from job #2, though just writing that makes me feel guilty & lazy.