Yesterday I went to the Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival in Canby. Once we got back, I could’t resist starting to spin right away. This was my one indulgence from Dicentra Designs (obtained from the 50% off bin!), and I’m regretting that I didn’t pick up a few more rovings. It’s an absolute dream to spin… I’ve previously spun a skein from her BFL and it’s one of my nicest skeins. Below, my first bobbin of singles…. one more to go and then I’ll ply them together.
Our friend Santiago is going to have an art show at Tender Loving Empire in Portland, October 2 to November 15.
A few years ago, my parents cleaned out their garage and sent me pretty much everything that had anything to do with me. I got rid of a bunch of stuff and kept one bin that now contains a few items of clothing, a couple of dolls (remember the vinyl Kewpie dolls?) and teddy bears, my old glasses, and so forth.
And then there is this. I do not remember ever wearing this, but I must have.
I can’t stop staring at it.
Behold, our first hazelnut harvest:
Hard-won spoils from our battle with the blue jays and at least one squirrel. There’s one jay that likes to fly overhead as we leave for work and point and laugh.
“That jay is mocking us. It knows we’re leaving for the day!”
Yeah, well, I just roasted my first batch of hazelnuts, so… suck it, birdie!
Of course, like most things involving me, food, an oven, and a hot pan, I’m not sure how these actually turned out. They smell divine, but they seem soft and oh my stars will you look at this! Oh, ho ho ho, I am SO making THAT someday soon.
Where was I? Oh yes, what I did wrong… probably did not roast them long enough or let them steam in the towel long enough. Next batch, I’ll try to fix that.
Mr. Wolf and I were having a conversation about something this morning and I mentioned that quote about doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results as being applicable to the situation. I couldn’t remember to whom the quote is attributed. Turns out it’s Albert Einstein, who (supposedly) said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Rather a timely quote, I thought… for the situation we were discussing, as well as politically.
I thought it was kind of funny to discover it was an Einstein quote, because just yesterday I picked up this book for Mr. Wolf at the university bookstore: The Einstein Scrapbook
I paged through it quickly but will wait for him to be done with it before I read through the entire thing. It looks really interesting, though, with photos and personal letters.
A “where were you” kind of day. Reflection felt… urgent today. Is it because we are on the verge of something here? Because we stand poised on the brink of fear and hope?
Seven years ago, I was working in Southern California and carpooling with a friend. We left the radio off in the car on our way to work so we could chat. I hate that we laughed and joked that morning, oblivious. We entered the office and were confronted by the television, conference room filled with people. I asked what was going on. Someone said a plane flew into the World Trade Center. I let out one of those shocked, incredulous laughs. I still remember the shocked laugh, because, what the fuck? And then the second plane hit.
Our executives were at a hotel near LAX, at a meeting. They called it off and came home because no one knew where it was safe to be, really. No one knew what the hell was happening or why. Friends at work were trying to reach their loved-ones by cell phone, but all the circuits were busy.
I sat in my office and cried.
I went home and turned on the news. And then I turned it off because people were jumping and I sit here now with tears in my eyes not quite blurring that remembered vision enough.
That night, the skies were so quiet. So strange for an area with a big airport. Until about 2am when the military buzzed very low overhead, scaring everyone.
I went to work for our NY headquarters a couple of years later, and I heard the stories of the people there waiting for the train to come, carrying their loved ones back home. The stories of the ones who didn’t come.
I found this memorial in a field in Salem, our very first month in Oregon. I felt kind of jaded about it, when I first saw it from the highway. Oh, flags. How obvious. How rah rah and patriotic. There were some ugly things done in the name of patriotism in the five years past. But I was wrong, it was overwhelming and affecting.
I remember.
This house we moved to is out in the sticks, but not actually. It’s, like, fake-rural. We live right off a relatively busy highway, but we have a little under half an acre and it’s a dead-end street with not too many houses. The bugs like it here. We have wasps building nests way up on the gable where we can’t reach them. Bastards. Last night a spider the size of a dinner plate ran under the dryer in the basement. Bastard. I told my husband there’s a reason I don’t do laundry… We also have plenty of flies, mosquitoes and I don’t even want to know what else right now. I’m kind of freaking myself out.
*cries a little*
Anyway, as I write this, I’m hanging out on the front porch with the wasps and a couple of spiders. We are so cozy. I can’t wait to hang out here on a warm, rainy day.
I plan to paint those chairs a glossy cobalt blue. Was going to do red, but then realized they’d clash with the porch. Wait! Don’t look at the porch. It’s all chipped and scuffed. For that matter, don’t look at the siding on the house, either.
Look! It’s an herb garden!
Yesterday, we tore out all the neglected and dead things that were not!growing in this little area and replaced them with some sort of fancy rosemary from Italy, some lavender plants from the sale rack, some thyme and some sage. And some flowering perennial thing. Can’t you tell what a good gardener I am?
The neighbors are very interested in our gardeing efforts. Pretty much everyone has stopped by to check on our progress. One lady who has lived on this street for 37 years just came by to tell us how pristine this street used to be. But, uh, no pressure. Just, you know, hurry up and FIX IT. (Okay, not really, they are very nice and have offered the use of garden tools. So we’ll FIX IT ALREADY.)
Seed-saving update: Some well-meaning soul threw away my jalapeño seeds. I’m looking in Mr. Wolf’s direction (!hi honey!), but we had lots of people over on Labor Day for a BBQ and it could have been anyone who was helping us clean up. My fault for not labeling them. My fingers are no longer burning… THE BURNING!… so maybe I’ll try again.
What. They were hot this time and there were like a thousand of them. Or thirty.
Now that I’ve deleted everything that was on this blog prior to July, I was trying to decide if I should re-post photos.
What do you say? If you’d seen a photo before, but it was deleted, would you care if I posted it again? Would you still continue to come here and read and validate my bloggy existence?
Well, damn! OR Blogs has been closed for five days and I didn’t even realize. I could see that I wasn’t getting updated posts in Bloglines, but I didn’t go over there to see why until today. Now I’m sad… it was such a wonderful creation & resource. I understand his reasons, though, sorry as I am to see it go.
The directory of blogs will be up through the end of September so you can subscribe to all the blogs you can’t live without, like MIIIIIIINE. My boring, boring, blog. Ugh.
Armed with information from the International Seed Saving Institute, I have attempted to save some seeds. Only time will tell if I have had any success with the cantaloupe (it’s actually muskmelon, I guess) and the jalapeños. Once I get the seeds in the ground next year, we’ll just have to wait and see if anything sprouts. My finger tips are still in a bit of misery over the jalapeños, so it better work!
I can say with certainty, though, that my heirloom tomato seeds = FAIL. The process for tomato seeds is pretty fascinating, if a bit squicky, and in re-reading that now, I see I did a couple of things wrong. My cover wasn’t loose, and I didn’t stir. And I may have added too much water.
Dealing with that tomato just grossed me out. I mean… look at it. But I will try again because my husband loves tomatoes and this way he can’t say I never did anything for him. I’ll just say, I grew tomato fungus on my kitchen counter, dear.
Craftgawker
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