Reading: Diana Wynne Jones, The Magicians of Caprona

Watching: "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest"

Moving: toted a half-cord of wood

House: I took a brush to the inside of the shower, I think for the first time. A lot more effective than a scrubby sponge. Really gross.

Cooking: lots of green tomatoes

Garden: I stripped the vegetable garden.

19 October 2002: weekend again

Blake just said "Blake is a boy."

So I think I'll work backward from there.

I am cozy in the basement after putting in two whole hours of manual labor. I added to the compost pile; raked out the gardens; plucked the weeds; pulled out all the vegetable plants, tomato cages, and stakes; found one last cucumber; and toted a half cord of wood from the alley into the yard (in reverse order).

This morning we took delivery of a half cord of wood, pine and piñon. Now I just hope the whole winter isn't a Red Day. The driver tipped his truck behind the garage and in the few minutes the alley was blocked, a vagrant came clambering over the woodpile. He offered to move the wood for us, which offer we declined; he asked the driver for a cigarette, which the driver gave. Maybe the driver was feeling extravagant because of his tip. Maybe smokers are just nicer than nonsmokers. The driver left, and the vagrant wandered through the alley. He had stashed a pack and a blanket "somewhere around here" that he now couldn't find. We have one blanket we haven't used for years, from RDC's bachelor days, that he obviously needed more than we did.

I gave him that, but I forgot to offer him a waffle breakfast.

We had one extra waffle because the recipe makes four. Usually we have two left over, but one we would fight over.

We had one left over because we had a guest last night. A former coworker of RDC's was in Colorado for a conference and stayed with us last night. I had met him only once before, almost two years ago at a holiday party; RDC and he started at Dot Com on the same day and they knew each other well. We walked through the park, bussed to downtown, noshed at the Wynkoop (artichoke dip), and dined at Tamayo, and cabbed home. Sean was a charming conversationalist anyway and might have been even without two excellent topics to be going on with, traveling and his daughter.

Sean liked Blake, which made me happy. And made Blake happy, because of course Blake liked him. No one can understand what Blake's saying on first hearing without prompting, but when he understood that Blake's chucking and whistling added up to "Blake is a pretty bird" and "You're a good boy, buddy," he didn't think we were delusional. Of course, he was trapped in our house for the night, so maybe he was being politic.

He arrived at the house just as I did on my bike, from work. I was able to do this because my bike wasn't stolen, remember? The perpetrator had his trial this week. (How's that for transition?) I am flabbergasted that he wanted a trial, but apparently he opted for it rather than plea-bargain. We didn't press charges, of course; we had our bikes. I guess the state pressed charges, and the prosecutor told us the suspect had reason to try to avoid conviction.

RDC was subpoenaed. There are a couple of points that intrigue or amuse me that I hope don't violate the man's privacy. When he was arrested with our bikes and weed whacker, he told the police he had a lawn-care business. I snarked that of course a single, electric weed whacker lawn-care business would be run from the backs of two bikes from Willimantic, Connecticut. (Dreamweaver's spellchecking function suggests "illuminati" for "Willimantic." Snork.) Just before the trial, we learned that his defense would be that our possessions were clearly up for grabs, unambiguously in the alley by the dumpster. If by "up for grabs" he meant that the bikes were on their rack and the weed whacker was plugged in, well then he was right.

When the public defender cross-examined RDC, she was trying to show that the bikes were worth less than $500, which would have made the charge a lesser crime. RDC countered with yearly maintenance and occasional replacement of parts. They're worth at least the house insurance deductible (equal to that amount, and I wonder if that's coincidence), and that's not even counting the whacker. She also wanted to know why the car wasn't in the garage (um, because I can't put it there, although I can get it out) and why I hadn't used it to get to work that day (although what bearing that had on anything I don't know) because clearly using non-car transportation made us lying heathens.

One afternoon this week as I came home, I picked every last tomato bigger than a golf ball (I've given up on transitions). After Kymm pointed out that the green pumpkin-as-apple pie Little House book was Long Winter, I reread it. Another thing Ma made was green tomato pickle. No Usual Suspect admitted having the Little House cookbook, but I got some other suggestions. Wednesday I made a green tomato pie (with an entire shredded peel of a lemon) and Thursday I made green tomato salsa. Yes. I cooked.

The pie is, as RDC diplomatically put it, interesting. The tomato guts, lemon, and 1.5 cups of sugar make most of the filling an anonymous syrupy edible, and pie crust is always yummy; the fleshy bits of tomato are...not what I would think of making a dessert with. But okay as a vegetable. I haven't had the salsa yet (yes, I was going to spring at least the salsa on the innocent houseguest) but RDC says it's good. Of course, he likes regular, cucumbery relish for hot dogs, so I'll have to see. And tonight we're having fried green tomatoes for dinner (the first time for me).

And I have to say that even if the pie had been a total failure as an eatable, just making it would have been worthwhile. RPR and I were having a fairly somber and distressing phone conversation that eventually we needed to leaven. I told her we had bought a rug I wasn't certain of and she said she was sure it couldn't be that bad unless we got it from Home Depot, and I said um, and we cracked up and she amended it to an Ames rug, and later I told her to ask me what I was doing right now at this very second. At that very second I was slicing green tomatoes for what she thought was the most outlandish pie she'd ever heard of. So we got to laugh together (or at me, whichever), and that was a good thing.

The cookbookcase is in the living room because the sunroom is next under the knife. When I first saw the rug in the house, against the couch and walls, under the ceiling lamp, I didn't like it. I'm still not certain, but it looks much better in natural light. This happens in the bedroom under artificial light as well--my beloved walls turn from a lovely lavender to orchid. So I'll just never turn on a light in the living room. That'll be swell.

I have not yet noticed that seven bike commutes (out of fourteen workdays, oops) have tightened my droopy butt. What I have noticed is how much my posture--mine, belonging to me, who used to pride myself on my broad shoulders and upright stance--sucks. Pausing at a stoplight, how straight is my spine? Not at all. So I'm trying to notice that and straighten up, although bothering to work my abdominal muscles might help more. The other thing I notice while at stoplights is that one clause from All the Pretty Horses or elsewhere in the Border Trilogy invariably comes to mind: "He sat his horse." I remember the expression because it struck me as wrong. I had never heard "to sit" used as a transitive verb. But I'm sure it's valid equestrian jargon. I do always mount my bike from the left side so it doesn't shy but am otherwise aware it's not a horse, so mostly I just laugh at myself for being so unoriginal as to laugh at my own unoriginality.

Yeah. I've driven 50% so far. I drove one day the first week to bring in stuff like my map (I have a great 3D map of the country that emphasizes its terrain rather than its highways, how novel), one day this week for no good reason at all, and every day last week: Monday wiped out after JournalCon, Tuesday still not recuperated, because Wednesday I saw a doctor before work for the bladder infection I wound up with, giving me not quite a really good excuse for Thursday and no good reason at all on Friday. Other than that RDC was away and since he wouldn't want the car for errands and wasn't around to bolster my discipline....Excuses, excuses.

But I got back on the horse Monday. So to speak.

I love Loganberry Books. I submitted a query to there in August. This week, someone submitted an author and a title (Eric Houghton, Steps Out of Time). I hope to reread it within two weeks. Googling the title (now that I had it), I found it on several public libraries' lists of time-travel books. I wouldn't've found it with any of the bits I remembered, which is also why I didn't find it on Thomas: the LOC tagline mentions mist (the time travel enabler), which I didn't remember at all. But next time, that'll be another means for me to plumb.