Friday, 1 December 2006

december to-do list

  • Cookie-baking party, 2nd.
  • Tea @ Brown Palace. Tattered Cover for hatchlings. 10th.
  • Ship Emlet and Siblet's box. Ship RCOS's. 11th.
  • Office Depot: Printer ink, markers. 13th.
  • Post Office: for BJWL, RSH, CLH, ZBD, ABW, SFR. 13th.
  • Send E-vite, 12th.
  • Print cards, 13th
  • Print letters, 13th.
  • Write notes, 13th.
  • Bring rocker downstairs, 14th.
  • Haircut, 14th. . Fabulous. I am not pretty enough to carry off a cut this fantastic.
  • 14th. Send cards
  • 14th. Write notes
  • 14th. Inventory paper goods
  • CostCo: pick up contacts, 15th . Pellegrino. Party supplies
  • 15th. Finish neighborhood stockings
  • 15th. Send cards
  • 15th. Target: candy to decorate gingerbread house
  • 16th. Consider outsight lights
  • 16th. Finish neighborhood stockings
  • 16th. Go downtown? MCA for RDC
  • 16th. Make Nütella
  • 18th. Get molasses! Mix and chill gingerbread batter
  • 19th. Dot Org party at DMNS
  • 19th. Roll and bake gingerbread
  • 20th. Solstice chez Scarf and Monkey
  • 20th. Construct and decorate gingerbread house
  • 21st Blossoms of Light and solstice toast at Scarf's
  • 26th. Donate blood
  • Inventory recipes for shopping lists
  • Whole Foods: Chocolate chips. White chocolate. Cranberries. Heavy cream. Confectioner's sugar.
  • Make and freeze cookies for party
  • 30th. Party
  • 31st. Progressive New Year's Eve
  • Measure corner for brackets and shelves to replace bookcase

  • friendly young ladies

    Possibly Mary Renault should stick with ancient and mythological Greece. I adored both The King Must Die and The Persian Boy, and then this (along with Boy) was on the Triangle list too.

    Renault said (according to the book's preface) that she always wrote what she wanted, without concern for censorship, but this book takes some disjointed turns that seem forced by publishing mores rather than by the characters' various motivations. Furthermore, it has one of the most moving heterosexual love scenes I've ever read, and no homosexual ones: Renault knew what was publishable.

    The introduction alleges she wrote it in response to The Well of Loneliness, which I haven't read, and The Children's Hour, of which I've seen a non-Bowdlerized cinematization, and that she meant to get across the message that homosexuality doesn't have to be miserable or end miserably. I don't think she succeeded, and I'm a bit surprised at the book's inclusion on the Triangle list, because she as much as says she doesn't agree, or care that, Silence = Death.

    Well-constructed; lovely writing; a little more of people's being able to read whole personas and deduce complex motivations from a glimpse of an expression than sits well with me; not as much of a collapse of credibility as production codes demanded of "Suspicion" and "Rebecca" but certainly wobbly.*

    * Mr. Rochester isn't the most desirable of partners either. Hollywood did not give Joan Fontaine the nicest husbands.

    Saturday, 2 December 2006

    cookie-baking party

    Friday night and Saturday morning I made two batters that need to be chilled. I found a recipe for a chocolate snowball without shortening and made that, and I made gingerbread, since the point of the party was to get all messy with decorating.

    With so many cooks processing the broth, the snowballs were rolled and baked in no time, but they had ground hazelnuts, so when two-year-old Stick, whose mother is allergic to nuts and who might be himself, arrived, he was unable to eat any of the already-baked cookies. He was a tremendous help with cutting out gingerbread, though. I pulled out a box for him to stand on so he could reach the table, and the silicon mats were perfect to protect the table from the cutters' edges. With lots of Play-doh experience behind him, Stick got the principle of cutters immediately, if not how to press one all the way through the batter or how to transfer it to the baking sheet.

    When the sheets with his cookies (mostly shapes, because his reindeer tended to lose their heads and his trees to get bent) went in the oven, he folded himself on the floor in front of it to wait (you know that way little kids sit, like a capital M?). I then turned on the oven light, and that was just terrific. Soon after the first gingerbread emerged, his father brought over baby Twig and the parents switched kids, and Alex did not want to leave, even to follow the warm gingerbread home.

    While gingerbread cooled, Kal made cookie candy-canes and I made snickerdoodles. These I had never made, and they were pretty good despite lacking chocolate. The candy-canes were fun to make but tastewise didn't work for me.

    When it came time to decorate, the dogs (Soccer brought Maisie and Maven brought Morgan) were very happy because finally everyone was finally in one spot, at the table, instead of in the living room and the dining room and the kitchen needing constant attendance and herding. And Blake was happy because he was finally let out: he has decided that oven mitts are not just whistle-to-able but worshipable too, so he had to be imprisoned while the oven was being opened and closed and trays were hot. And Maisie was happier because Blake was out. She finds him fascinating, while older, placider Morgan ignores him.

    Decorating cookies was definitely a smock event. Stick would have been a champ at this but I was just as glad he had left by now. Maybe after the breakfast nook is done, I will welcome toddlers there to use food coloring and frosting to decorate cookies. We grownups were messy enough. Lots of stained teeth and fingers and hot wet towels later, we were done.

    Done decorating, anyway, but not done distressing Morgan. Because she is unsteady on her feet, she prefers rugs to slippery wooden floors. Even getting around the chair at the corner of the living room to step between it and the dining room takes careful negotiating. During cleanup, her mother and I were in the kitchen, and you could tell she would much rather have been underfoot than under the dining table. She really is the sweetest dog.

    The best thing about having eight people over to make cookies is that they take most of the cookies home with them. I had all the fun of baking and decorating four batches of cookies and way less than one batch in the house to eat.

    Sunday, 3 December 2006

    pretty walk

    The thermometer read just over 20, but the sun was thoroughly out. The sun was thoroughly out, but its angle has been low enough, the days short enough, and the temperature cold enough that Wednesday's snow is still on the ground. After a late morning snack of a Honeycrisp apple and gingerbread cookies, I drove down to Haitch's and my favorite stretch of the Highline Canal trail.

    I saw a peregrine falcon, an enormous Swainson's hawk, either two or twice, and a rabbit. And other critters, of course, but only the usual suspects: squirrels, magpies, flickers, and dogs. And horses. One side of the trail is peppered with McMansions but the other has older horse properties with horses to match. On the way out, I stopped to watch an Appaloosa gambol in its yard while its stablemate browsed desultorily nearby. The fence was only four feet high and I was sure it had enough room to run into a jump but no such luck (for me). On the way back, both horses lay in the sun. Perhaps I missed how the idle one tuckered itself out.

    5.2-mile walk, with Haitch reminisces if not the actual Haitch.

    Monday, 4 December 2006

    gym

    After work, unaccompanied and unprodded by RDC. A miracle. And the point of having my own car when it's too dark or cold or icy to bike.

    I did the "fatburner" program on the elliptical, because having a pulse of 48 bpm and negative blood pressure, which might result from overly intense cardiac exertion, doesn't do me any good when it's the flab around my belly that's going to kill me. 30', level 11, over 130 spm.

    Then some weights.

    Tuesday, 5 December 2006

    smoky the cow horse

    The book's own blurb alleges that James wrote this book for adults and just happened to be pleased by how well children received it. I don't believe it: one, its writing is geared toward young readers, but more, two, when the year's crop of foals is rounded up, author Will James describes only branding ("there was no pain," snork) but Smoky leaves the corral a gelding. It's like that Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle propaganda about the kid whose room is so untidy that eventually he cannot reach the door. I'm like Ramona with Mike Mulligan here: we, or at least I, don't need details about gelding or peeing, but I'd appreciate your being honest enough to allude to the situation.

    I admit I expected it, in a 1927 book about mustangs and cowboys, but damn. "All of him [clothes and face] pointed out...the man being a half breed of Mexican and other blood that's darker, and [bad behavior] showed that he was a halfbreed from the bad side...." "Halfbreed" as an adjective (or noun) is as bad as I expected the pejoratives to go, but then James used "breed" too, because, I guess the reader should gather, it's not just miscegenation but the bloods themselves that are bad. And the horse goes from avoiding all humans, in a mustang kind of way, to particularly hating all dark-skinned humans. That's nice.

    That happened when the horse was bright and strong. For the rest of the book, he wasn't. And that's why I don't read animal books.

    This was be my last Newbery of the year. Five more to go, and then I'll be caught up and only need keep up with each subsequent year's winner.

    Wednesday, 6 December 2006

    gym

    30' on the elliptical, in the "fat-burning" mode which felt like a stroll through the park. Stupid thing. Later I talked about it with AEK and RDC, who opined that the easy range is for people so out of shape or obese that the cardio range would actually be dangerous for them.

    Thursday, 7 December 2006

    'tis the season

    Margaret's card arrived on the Monday after Thanksgiving. Others are trickling in. Last night AEK and Maven came over for dinner, thank you RDC, and afterward AEK and I watched three episodes of "Gilmore Girls" with me addressing envelopes throughout. Affixing address labels, that is, recipient and return.

    Saturday we plan to find our tree. Sunday the Other bookclub is going to the Brown Palace for tea, so RDC said he'll probably go skiing. That's good, because I'll bake present-cookies before and after tea--peanut butter for my father, as usual, and ginger-chocolate for my mother, and something or other for BDL, and also print cards.

    If the printer doesn't die, I should be able to mail everything on Monday, which would mean I'd be done with everything remote. Making and wrapping local presents is much more fun.

    when worlds collide

    Months ago Maven said her brother (who was visiting at the time and attended my birthday party) mentioned the accidental guinea fowl in his weblog. I didn't even pretend ignorance of the concept ("a weblog? what's that? what a notion!") but asked for the address. Finally she remembered to send it to me.

    In May he was fine, if a little quiet, and gave me a really nice pen-and-ink portrait of Blake done from a photograph on the website. Now though I question his motives in drawing my little buddy, because come to find out from his weblog...he's a furry.

    Saturday, 9 December 2006

    gym

    And I even would have gone on Friday, at lunch, if I had remembered its early closing.

    I did a lot of stretching then 15' on the stairmill at level 8, something over 43 floors when I stopped paying attention. Also I ran two miles at 5.1 mph, not the 6 mph at which I could just complete 5K but with a 2% incline instead of barely 1%. I'm going to work up to 5K at 2%, and then up to 5%, and only then increase my speed.

    the new dive

    Kal, Neal, RDC, and I went out for sushi, on the way passing the All-Inn, which supposedly isn't as much of a crack hotel anymore. It now has a bar at street level, the Rock Bar, whose foot traffic should suppress at least some drug traffic. Neal or RDC said he meant to go there one of these days, and so we agreed to go after sushi. Sushi was great: good and close to home. The Rock Bar was fun in an entirely different way.

    First of all, me in a bar. Consulting a physician soon after we started dating, RDC mentioned that he now went out for milkshakes more than for beer. The doctor told him to stick to beer. I have employed various excuses to avoid bars but the main one, smoke, went out the window when Colorado recently banned all indoor smoking. And what the hell, I'm all kinds of adventurous these days and--I only just now noticed this--never seriously considered bailing. Note: caffeinate self thoroughly before such evenings.

    We settled into a huge semi-circular booth, three whiskeys and a club soda. Kal was drinking whiskey! Wine, sure, at book club all the time; I might have seen her drink a beer before too. But whiskey, when her and my previous activities have been going to author events or to see "Ladies in Lavender" (starring Judi Dench and Maggie Smith) or to stroll around the Botanic Gardens. Once on an apparent bender we saw "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" so this on its own cracked me up.

    RDC says it is not the dive-iest bar I have ever been in--true, I even had a shot, an Alabama Slammer, at the PS Lounge once--but it was low rent and down-market and, for a meat market, a novelty to me as only a bar instead of mainly a restaurant.

    I was seat-dancing for a while, too chicken to dance alone or to throw myself into the company of the unknown women already there, until Kal decided she could go with me. My god, the music. Van Halen, the Scorpions, Billy Squier, Foreigner. During "Jesus Is Just All Right," Kal left the Doobie Brothers and me for the lav (an adventure in itself: someone threw up on Neal's shoes and RDC swore he saw bloodstains from a misjudged heroin injection) and I danced with the two women remaining from a group of several who had arrived together but long since paired up with the luckier among a bunch of men whom--my table was sure--they had never met before.

    We showed our ages in various ways: Kal by never having heard the by-far lightest song all night, the Cars' "Shake It Up" and Neal by suggesting RDC and I have an '80s party and not following the subsequent bickering. RDC would have a '70s party instead but without Roxy Music or anything from Zenyatta Mondatta or even The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. I showed mine by having no idea whatsoever of the songs that really filled the dance floor later in the evening. I had long since left it, not recognizing Metallica or Iron Maiden (but at least knowing their names when Neal and RDC, respectively, identified them), but I had little desire to return to it when it got really crowded. Crowded and the crowd mouthing the words (or singing; who could tell at that volume) indicate a popular song, and I hadn't the least idea.

    But hey, when we left it wasn't at my suggestion.

    I drove, that being my duty in the social order. I had heard RDC's story about EJB's having to drive RDC's car one night because even in his ignorance of standard transmission he was safer than RDC, but the bit RDC had never included before was "We tossed a coin to see who would drive and EJB was the only one who could find it." So I was already laughing (at the turn of phrase, not at the DUI) when we passed the hotel window, where we all cracked up because there in the lobby stood one of the dance floor couples, probably asking if they rented rooms by the hour.

    Sunday, 10 December 2006

    mrs. stevens hears the mermaids singing

    May Sarton (whose first name I always think of as "Mary").

    I would like to suggest this for bookclub, one or both, because it's short and, as far as I'm concerned, brilliant. But I reacted to it way too personally: is it really brilliant, or did it just speak to me so intimately that it must be perfect? I could deal with its not being chosen, but if it were chosen and disliked, I wouldn't want to attend the discussion, let alone host it (as each book's selector does). I might even have to explain why it is now a favorite book when I am not 70, a poet, or noticeably bisexual, and I don't know if I can do that.

    One thing I can say is that I like how unafraid Sarton is to use symbolism plainly. Mrs. Stevens is an interview subject; her two interviewers drive past quarries to reach the woman they consider their quarry. One interviewer is named Hare, and both actual and metaphorical pebbles are thrown into the deep still cold quarry waters. When an interviewer asks if something were a watershed moment, all three submerge again into the conversation.

    Monday, 11 December 2006

    treadmill run

    My first 5K in a long time, at 5.2 mph and 2% incline, covering 420 vertical feet and taking 35'.

    Friday, 15 December 2006

    longer treadmill

    After a few minutes to warm up and stretch, I ran 3.5 miles in less than 43' at an incline of 2% and occasionally 2.5%, with a gain of more than 450 vertical feet. 3.8 miles total with cooldown.

    Saturday, 16 December 2006

    non-reading

    After I finished May Sarton, I picked up Nightwood. I made a great library haul at my beloved main branch of the Arapahoe County library system two weeks ago after my pretty birdful walk. I've been wrapping and writing cards and finishing stockings and not setting aside a lot of time to read, and even watching "Battlestar Galactica" before sleep instead of reading. What that means is that I don't like Nightwood much, or rather that its first dozen pages have failed to engage me.

    Today is a hanging-around-in-our-jammies day, and I will give Djuna Barnes another push or give up for the next book in the stack. Which I should have done several days ago.

    blake's perfect day

    Okay, it is not perfect: perfect would be in the den, where his parents sit next to instead of near each other. But close. Blake has had a lot of headpetting, and singing into the hand, and pinking the edges of Yule cards, and helping me bead stockings, plus, each of us had toast for lunch. (Blake is Alex from A Clockwork Orange: he has eggiwegs and lomticks of toast.)

    I finished the last cards just before the mail came and then sat with my laptop, watching "Amadeus" with headphones and stitching stockings. Blake chewed on his own string of beads and then tucked for a nap. Unusually, he tucked to his right shoulder. I whispered to RDC to look, and he asked if the buddy was turned around. So it's not just me who knows that Blake usually tucks to his left. This is something every birdie tailor needs to know about so accommodation can be made in the appropriate shoulder's plumage.

    The other day I popped into African Grey to look for a toy for Blake's stocking. I left my shopping bag from another store on the counter because the shop is quite crowded, and looked for toys and spoke with the owner about a cockatiel she had for sale who was surrendered (for sale?!) by her person because when she laid eggs, her poop smelled funny. I really hate people sometimes. She was a pretty little pearl, 11 years old, named Caraway. I took to her immediately and wondered if Blake would, but no. When the owner and I returned to the counter, the guard cockatoo (an umbrella named Rags, very promiscuous, had inserted itself into my arms earlier) was way up on its perch laughing and nibbling something it held in one paw. Karen pointed out that the package of candy canes had been skidded out of my shopping bag and ripped open, and the crook of one cane had been broken off. There it was in the happy cockatoo's claw. Bad bird.

    Perhaps another element to make Blake's day really perfect would be avian companionship, especially of the female persuasion, but no. RDC gave him a pita chip, his new absolute favorite munchie, and that will have to do.

    Monday, 18 December 2006

    shadow puppy

    Happy 29th birthday, my bestest Shadow puppywoof.

    Tuesday, 19 December 2006

    elliptical

    I got on the treadmill and warmed up but as soon as I accelerated to a run, my knees started protesting: I had not even thought to tape them. Forget it, I decided, and used an elliptical instead. Fake exercise. 30' @ 100% incline and 45% resistance, and I didn't need my 150 bpm dance-mix thingie to tell me the elliptical works me less than the treadmill. On a treadmill, 5.2 mph is about as slow as I can comfortably run, and 150 or 151 bpm is fine for that, but I needed lower resistance on the elliptical to match my pace to the bpm. Solution: mixes with different bpm. Whoever assembles these free podcasts (DJ Steveboy) makes them in a range of bpms.

    Wednesday, 20 December 2006

    social week

    Last night was Dot Org's fëte at DMNS, tonight is Solstice chez Scarf and Drums, and tomorrow everyone goes to Blossoms of Light at the Botanic Gardens. This time in snow! We are having a snowstorm, a real one.

    I called work when I was already late, and the phone rang twice, giving me hope, and then the receptionist answered. Poop. Half an hour later when I was almost out the door, CoolBoss called. I pranced. I jigged. RDC asked if I was going to be this excited all day, but he's the one who's tipped three shots of espresso down his gullet while experimenting with his new coffees. Who's hyper now?

    Whee, a day off. I pranced out to shovel, and what the hell, I shoveled our side of the block, which is only nine houses. Actually eight, because I ignore one house. If they ever shoveled themselves, I might occasionally spare them the effort, but they do not. They're on the corner, and do not shovel either in front or along the side, and that side is in the northern shade of their house and snows gets packed into ice and I have contemplated reporting them to the city. But I am only passively mean, so actively shoveled out the other eight stretches of sidewalk, plus the walks and steps of the two elderly households. Babushka emerged to thank me, just in a turtleneck and vest while her miniature schnauzer wore a jacket. By the time I got back to our house, you could barely tell I'd shoveled. Eh, I won't go out again until late afternoon.

    Kal might come over to enjoy the fire, should we ever light one, and to wrap presents. The only presents I still need to wrap are RDC's, which means downstairs in my study not near the fire, but we'll work something out. Oh, I can work on RDC's stocking.

    The only thing about the day off and maybe tomorrow too is that I cannot give ÜberBoss his cookies.

    Waiting on my desk Monday morning was a package, wrapped in blue, with four rubber duckies swimming across its surface. I brought it to give ÜberBoss's office to open. He didn't know that CLH and I exchange rubber duckies and variations on that theme--there's a rubber-ducky ornament (glass, not rubber) on my tree--and how perfect these are. They are a police officer, a firefighter, a construction worker, and maybe a miner, and therefore looked a little like the Village People. I thought that immediately upon seeing them but didn't say so to him, but he mentioned it so we got to talk about that. I am sure I have given CLH a biker ducky, so all we need is an Indian one.

    Opening the package, I told him how much I've enjoyed his previous gifts, that after my cookie-baking party a few weeks ago I got to use my snowman cookie jar, and that this year's card (penguins) would go on the mantel next to my penguin snowglobe, and that Kal and Stick enjoyed Robert Sabuda's pop-up Winter's Tale. He smiled a little at the mention of a cookie-baking party, and the first item I drew from the festive tin was a cookie cutter. A penguin? Yes, looking up. And another, larger penguin, looking down. Plus black food coloring, and orange. (Black and orange? Maybe penguins are Hallowe'en birds too; that makes as much sense as their being Yule birds. When Christmas gets thoroughly secularized to a "winter holiday," then they'll be perfect.) So I was effusively grateful.

    Monday night I baked hazelnut chocolate chip cookies and mixed dough for chocolate-hazelnut snowballs. (Hazelnuts will figure prominently in everything I make this Yule because I might have just kinda let the bulk bin empty into a sack at the grocery store a few weeks ago.) Last night after the party, I baked the snowballs (the dough needs to chill, hence the day's pause) and attempted spritzer cookies. The ink on my recipe has faded and I guessed at one cup of flour. But the three ounces of cream cheese, .5 cup of butter and .5 of (non-hydrogenated) shortening didn't make me think that maybe that wasn't enough flour. Even the dough's goopiness in the sprizer didn't set off enough warning bells. I made a tray of misshapen poinsettias, shoved them in the oven, and mixed green into the other half. At this point I looked in the oven, just in time to keep the melted poinsettias from dripping off the tray.

    So today I was going to give ÜberBoss hazelnut chocolate chip, hazelnut chocolate snowball, and chewy chocolate ginger cookies, and feel bad about no spritzer cream cheese cookies or ginger- or shortbread penguin cookies. But now I have the rest of today and maybe tomorrow to try again. Except that he will not be in on Friday and possibly the rest of the year. But certainly I will bring him penguins sometime.

    This evening when we venture out to Scarf's Solstice celebration I will distribute cards to the block and the packages with the hatchlings' stockings and the jars of faux Nütella (hazelnut-chocolate spread, no surprise).

    It's snoooooooowing! The snow won't be fresh but it will be present on Monday: my first white Christmas since 1995, when we were in Aspen. A festive Yule for all, so long as the electricity lasts.

    Thursday, 21 December 2006

    blizzard wheeee except not

    Poor AEK cannot get home from NYC so might spend Christmas with friends in Chicago; Maven's sister was supposed to arrive yesterday and now will not come at all; Kal's aunt and uncle were supposed to have left today for her parents' house and, for missing Christmas with their family, at least are safely in their own home; Kal and Neal are supposed to fly to her parents' on Saturday but that's up in the air, except not in the air but rather grounded. Again, they're also safe at home. If Scarf, Drums, and Monkey succeed in flying to his family tomorrow I get Mia for five whole days! My most worrisome personal connection is my mother's first cousin and husband who drove to DIA from Laramie and have been in DIA since Wednesday, and the man needs dialysis. I am hopeful that this puts them in some sort of priority standing as far as evacuation goes. They are welcome here, and a good thing, since intra-city travel might be possible before either Monument Hill (on I-25 between here and Colorado Springs, where a son lives) or 25 from here to Cheyenne (or 80 between Cheyenne and Laramie) is passable.

    Meanwhile, the Solstice party was sweet. London played carols and we sang, and Neal knows the second verse (both that there is one, and its words) to "Frosty the Snowman," and I sang "I Wonder as I Wander" even though I am not Caroline Bradshaw. Stick unwrapped both his and Twig's stockings and though his mother was pleased, he is old enough to know that anything that looks like clothing is not a good present. So he asked what the other bag was (Monkey's stocking).

    The Botanic Gardens was closed yesterday and is likely closed today, but perhaps by tomorrow it will be open. We can snowshoe thither.

    Most of my block was out in the street today, shoveling and pulling kids in sleds and romping with dogs in the snow and even the reclusive non-Babushka elderly neighbor emerged to thank me for shoveling. One is having an impromptu party this afternoon. Mentioning the evacuation of people from DIA by caravan (buses immediately behind snowplows), another asked, "Where will they bring them? The convention center?" because we are all about the gallows humor here. Of course people who travel by air tend to be better off than people who have no means of leaving a city and are unlikely to be as ignored and maltreated. But I hope one of those buses goes to a dialysis center.

    american theocracy

    Its full name is American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century, and the sections on religion and oil were interesting (devastating, disheartening) but the bit on money went on forever. Also, narrator Scott Brick was less emotive than in Influenz but Richard Simmons is less emotive than that: still not un-emotive enough. I doubt I'll listen to any more of Brick's narrations but I'll read more Kevin Philips.

    And do I have good timing or what? The next book I started was Noam Chomsky's Hegemony or Survival, because I am all about the cheerful.