crafty vegetables

The Eleven got up early-ish yesterday and spent Black Friday doing something much more interesting than even contemplating stores and malls: we drove about southern Vermont visiting artist studios around the Putney area. We'd done the tour over Thanksgiving weekend in 2005 and it was high on my list this year. Putney, and the surrounding woods, is surrounded by what must be hundreds of beautiful studios and artists who create every type of art you can imagine. Yesterday we narrowed down our list to six or seven that included pottery, tiles, quilting, Japanese woodworking, bookbinding and prints, and a spinnery. With a loads of rain in the morning the studios weren't overly crowded so we were able to stay warm by diving into studios warmed by wood-burning stoves.

This morning I headed into Brattleboro to gather some root vegetables at the Winter Farmers Market. The holy grail was a Gilfeather turnip that I was clued in on at Thanksgiving dinner at Ellen's. She made an unbelievable turnip soup and discussion rounded back to exactly what type of turnip was the genesis of the dish. This led to some ooh-ing and aah-ing by the locals as they spoke in hushed tones of the heirloom Gilfeather turnips. I have no way of knowing whether it was Ellen or the turnip (that would be a great book name: Ellen or the Turnip) but I'll have some idea when I make soup next week from the five-pound Gilfeather that's safely ensconced in the car. I also grabbed loads of massive parsnips for roasting, what appears to be a five-to-seven-pound bag of organic hardstem garlic, red and golden beets, and three pounds of beautiful Jerusalem artichokes. All will travel well back to Northern Virginia and end their service in soups, gratins, and myriad roasting pans.

There's a short story about Laurel, a small goat, and I from a visit to Vermont a few years back. Maybe I'll jot it down, have Laurel add to and edit it, and then pass it along. Either way, the above is another Vermont picture; it's the barn next door that plays a central role in the Laurel and the Goat tale.

We're loading up the car this afternoon and will drive halfway home this afternoon. We'll be back on The Hilltop pretty early Sunday afternoon.

t

happy day

We've made our way to the North, arriving yesterday evening, after doing half days up from the D.C. area. The clan'll head over to the hostess' digs shortly but we wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving from The Hilltop - on the road. Here are few snaps of southern Vermont on Thanksgiving afternoon.

Love to all.

t

pumpkin hunting

While I was letting Pumpkin out the front door about a month ago I heard a scrabble-scrabble sound coming from the porch, the left of the door. (Our front porch is big-ish and runs an L-shape around the front and side of the house.) Pumpkin was doing his usual worrying about crossing the door threshold as I stuck my head out the door and took a look for the squirrel that was no doubt making the noise. Sure enough, he was standing about seven feet from the door and peering back over his shoulder toward the door; he wasn't much concerned with me or the cat. As Pumpkin hopped through the door he headed towards the squirrel who'd slowly started to move across the porch toward the steps. My impression after this encounter was that all the small forest animals of The Hilltop have long been aware of Pumpkin's lack of claws and somewhat slow-motion life; they have few worries. (Not that cats hunt-and-kill squirrels although 'twere it Lemon the Ready coming out the door that squirrel might've died of heart failure.)

Sometime later that week H. told his mother the yard-as-story history of the squirrel family that lives in the trees of our back hill. Apparently, the 'couple' has some kids - I think the number is three - running about and the mother squirrel is something of a battleax - my word added to H.'s description. The father squirrel, as relayed by H., spends as much time as possible at the neighborhood pub, bowling alley, or generally anywhere he doesn't to listen to the kvetching of his lovely squirrel wife. Fortunately, we've got loads of trees and a good perimeter that provides him safe distances from his homestead without forcing him across other squirrel nations' borders.

About a week after the first Pumpkin / door event I was again letting him out in the morning and when I opened the door this time the same squirrel was at the door, as if he'd knocked or hit the doorbell, up on his haunches, and clearly waiting for Pumpkin to come outside. The opening of the door didn't distress him one bit - nor did I - as he was waiting for old Land Squid to come outside. By the time Pumpkin traveled the last five fee to the door the squirrel had moved off a few feet and again hopping very slowly toward the stairs. The cat carefully leapt over the threshold and started to follow the squirrel down the porch. I guess that as my laughter at this strange friendship subsided I remembered how many times I'd seen Pumpkin slink around the slide of the house, down the garden path, 'hunting' whatever it is a cat like him could hunt, I realized that cat and squirrel spend a good part of their days playing some sort of hide-and-seek with each other. They both benefit, with Pumpkin getting a chance to 'catch' something, and squirrel spending his days ignoring his responsibilities and earning a piece of mind.

Even our cats have been turned to strange creatures...

(untitled)

"The true culprits are those who mislead public opinion and take advantage of the people's ignorance to raise disquieting rumours and sound the alarm bell, inciting the country and, consequently, other countries into enmity. The real culprits are those who by interest of inclination, declaring constantly that war is inevitable, end by making it so, asserting that they are powerless to prevent it. The real culprits are those who sacrifice the general interest to their own personal interest which they so little understand, and who hold up to their country a sterile policy of conflict and reprisals. In reality, there is no salvation, no way out either for small states or for great countries except by union or conciliation."

Baron d'Estournelles de Constant
Introduction to
The International Commision to Inquire into
Causes and Conduct of the Balkan Wars, 1912-1913.

politics

This is a bit that's gotten funnier since the day we watched it. It's an entire episode but all I'm interested in passing along is the James Carville bit that starts at the 7-minute mark.

"You ain't tall; you just clever."

Brilliant.

thunderbirds are go

It looks like L. will be moving here in January for her next semester of school, and hopefully, the summer of 2010. We're sorting details, schools, bedrooms, etc. but it's all a very exciting prospect. I'll have more details, as if those are needed, in the near future.

X. decided while out-and-about over the weekend that she was meant to create a desk/computer/work corner in the living room. The area was already set with a table, computer, chair, and whatnot but she decided - at the store - that what it really needed to be was a corner full of a memory-foam pad, nice linens, pillows, and other accouterments required by queen-like entities. What we have now is a removed table and a floor-based semi-harem looking area where she can sit on the floor or kneel whilst doing whatever it is she does in that corner. My very first input/question was this: what are the odds, do you think, of both cats and both of your children deciding that your pillow carnavale is the best place in the World to sit, nap, sleep, or just mill about? She feigned surprise that any of those four would even contemplate entering her castle. Sure...that hope will work out just fine. Pumpkin spends time curled up in the wall-corner beneath the bookshelves so that he's protected from any "death from above". Of course, she was correct on Lemon; Lemon would just as soon die than spend any time in or near her competition. Lemon looks at the entire configuration in disgust - as well she should.

We've got a jaunt to Vermont next week. We'll leave here on Tuesday night and drive halfway with the finish on Wednesday morning. The plan is to avoid the I-95 traffic and run the left/right-hook through Pennsylvania and New York State (see you various 80s interstates). I'll keep everyone posted from the road. X's cousins are hosting Thanksgiving and I'm working that day merely as a sous and then fully running the day-after-Thanksgiving festivities and cooking. Interesting...

wrapping the weekend

While working - nay, manning - the LOC information desk yesterday I had one of those special moments. A gentleman and his girlfriend came to the desk and asked to see "the instruments"; we have a collection of violins and cellos on exhibit in the Whitthall Pavilion. They include all the great instruments of the day: Stradivarius, a Crisler donation, and about a half-dozen other pieces. The Whitthall isn't something that folks wander through as a matter of course being that it's a room off a downstairs hallway, but in my 20 months at the LOC I've had maybe 20 folks who've come to specifically see the instruments. The Library also pulls them out quite often for concerts in the Coolidge Auditorium by traveling players. Anyway, once I got the key from the supervisor we headed downstairs for a quick look and I find out that this gentlemen is the guitarist for Pete Seeger and has been building violins by hand for over 40 years. You will rarely in your life witness such happiness as I saw when he caught a glance of the instruments; there may have been tears in his eyes. His girlfriend, who'd found about the exhibit on-line, was all smiles to see just how happy he was to come across all of this on their visit to D.C. (they came down from NYC). I had the benefit of getting a nice, in-depth explanation of the shapes and design of violins - something I found horribly interesting. After about 45 minutes of joy they headed out with plans to come back to the City - the next time I told them to call ahead and speak with the musical instruments librarian; they are perfectly happy to actually pull out the pieces and let folks examine and hold them. It was wonderful to see them head out on the 1st St. NW so happy.

I'm watching the Sunday night NFL game on-line; Colts v. Pats. If the fans of each team (or haters of each team) can throw out that bias, watching these two teams is what football is all about. Both of them are so well-coached and so much fun to watch that I think they may be the only teams across sport that I'll watch and not have a rooting involvement. Brady and Manning are really something like heavyweights going at it. Great stuff.

It's looking more and more like L. will end up here in January. Details are being sorted but if it works out I hope she'll be here until the end of the summer...updates to follow.

rave party

Neither of us had seen A Streetcar Named Desire in any form (film, stage, or read on parchment) prior to last night's show; we both had a passing familiarity with the DuBois sisters and Stanley Kowalski. One of the finer points put forth by X, as we rode the Metro home, was that there's no real need to see it in any other iteration; the quality last night laid a perfect vision for how the characters should be brought to life. I know that seems unfair to say being that we have nothing to judge it against but follow along with her reasoning. Blanche and Stanley must be horribly difficult characters to bring to life without going overboard. Both show sides of personality that change drastically depending on who they are with or what state of mind they are experiencing; both could also be overacted, and no doubt have over the years, and that would make the 3:15 show almost unwatchable. Even though we expected Blanchett to be good she was better than imagined. About halfway through the first act I was also convinced that Joel Edgerton, as Stanley, was the equal of Cate. I thought he perfectly played the myriad of emotional personalities one would expect from the character - without going into hysterics. I'm going to guess, perhaps against all sense, that Brando overacted. (WaPo review here)

The show was our first time in the Eisenhower Theatre at the Kennedy Center and I must say I was quite pleased. The seats are very nice, there's loads of leg room (for a theatre), the acoustics were excellent, and the temp just right. I know, these seem like small things but they all bother me if the don't fall into place - at least rudimentarily.

The Library has been slow for the most part today. Not a lot of tourists as everyone is saving up travel time for Thanksgiving and Christmas. The weather, overcast with light rain, is probably keeping some of the locals away.

We have a dinner get together tonight with folks only 'known' as other parents of students at H's school; always an interesting mission when you don't actually know anyone via interaction. We'll see how the roasted vegetable, puttanesca sauce, and pesto lasagna goes over as our pot luck entree. If nothing else, it'll be the heaviest dish by weight.

desirous

I'm running around a bit today getting errands done, cooking pizzas for tonight's dinner and a veg lasagna for some New School parents get together tomorrow night, all while getting ironed and ready for the The Eleven's date at the Kennedy Center tonight. I managed some very nice seats for Cate Blanchett in A Streetcar Named Desire; it was long planned and in early for seats to the soldout run. The reviews have been great and I'll add my wholly amateur input tomorrow morning from my seat at the Library of Congress information desk.

All's well here aside from the endless rain.

t

I wore headgear...but only while sleeping.

Sometimes I'll just link; I know it's lazyish but what the heck. I've said or done just about every single one of these - not necessarily in a car but probably...sort of...

replaceable

Just in case you think, for one minute, that a place in this place is secure, consider this: I chucked both my immersion blender and the full-sized blender into the bin over the last week. I had an old Proctor-Silex immersion blender and I'll say one thing for it, and one thing only; it's the best immersion blender on Earth. You don't need crappy attachments, bowls/glasses to blend in, or any other junk to be happy - get the Proctor-Silex. That's it up above - a newer version than my decade old gem - get it. Trust me. (My impatience on purchasing will be evident, momentarily.) It's also plastic so it's good for teflon; and it's one piece. Don't buy into the two-peice construction myth. Think about it this way: I can give you something that is one piece or something that's two piece. What do you want? Aside from a hot bikini it's the greatest mystery of life. The important trait of the P-S, or any other immersion, is the size and placement of the openings. After mine finally busted after the eleventy-billionth batch of soup I headed to Target (source of my previous purchase) but they didn't stock it any more so I grabbed what I'll dubbed the piece-of-shit Oster immersion. Absolute junk. The holes were too small to puree anything so you had to do the dreaded 'tilt'. Granted, after a few tilts go bad and you have hot soup all over the stove and your sweater you get a little better but it's such a pain. Eventually, after about a month it melted and met it's potential - the garbage. After my dearest very subtly requested split-pea soup for dinner I realized I was in the shite with no blender. (The full-size, and not doubt related, blender hit the trash after I attempted to round out a batch of romesco last weekend - seriously, it was rotor blade carnage about The Hilltop.) I couldn't find a new P-S so I went with the Cuisinart which has a better opening system around the base (blender base), is one piece, and plastic vice metal construction. It worked much better this evening than the trash Oster but it's not the same. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to order a new gold standard online, mostly due to laziness, but I'll keep you updated on my findings. Is this more than you needed to know?

I'm into the new Radney Foster offering as I type - probably the closest thing to real country that I listen to these days; and Radney's good.

Peace.

t

warn, fate, eat

So, I’m sitting at my nemesis light this morning, first in line to turn right from lane 2, and I hear screaming sirens and see the flashing lights of an ambulance crossing from right-to-left in front of us. The left turn arrow kicks on at about this point and the guy in that turning lane hits the gas and off he goes. For some reason, I honk my horn at him hoping to get his attention so he’ll stop and not get t-boned by an emergency vehicle. I immediately realized that if mindless driver guy doesn’t hear – or respect – the sirens then my horn is useless. I consider it a self-critiquing moment.

I nabbed my gal last night and took her to see Mariza at Lisner Auditorium in D.C. Mariza is one of the leading lights in the Fado world and she put on a lovely show. You know you’re enjoying it when you go through a 1:45-minute set and don’t understand a word (aside from her lovely version of Smile toward the end). As you’d expect from someone of her caliber, she had a fantastic band with her (Portuguese guitar player*, acoustic guitar, acoustic bass, percussionist, and sometime keyboard/trumpet player). The stage set, with everyone but her seated in a broad semi-circle, grew on me as the show moved along – the players all get a bit insider joke-y as the show went on and were clearly enjoying themselves. The percussionist and Portuguese guitar player, in particular, stood out for me. Mariza was engaging throughout with the between-song dialogue beautifully weaved in when needed. One of the last songs they performed – just her, and the two guitarists, sans amplification – was brilliant. She introduced it as a taste of how she (and they, no doubt) started out playing in tavernas of Lisboa. We were in the fourth row so close enough to fully enjoy the singing and playing. I should be able to give her voice a full review but my skills in that area are questionable. She sounded brilliant to my amateur ears and I guess that’s good enough.

I’m not sure what to make of this – I don’t want to influence folks too much – but, not only is the ‘happening’ perfectly normal in the world but the comments are priceless. Should I be worried that I don’t see death as such a problem that I can laugh at comments? I certainly would have stayed to watch the outcome. I guess there’s some warning required but it’s not gruesome or bloody.

T

* both the guitar, a Portuguese guitar, and the player, a Portuguese player, apply here.

mug shots

Here are few mugs from the last week; before they become stale. The first two are from the piano recital last Sunday. Why is it that recitals are, more often than not, held in a church? As if being 12 and trying to play some damn song isn't bad enough, they make you do it in a church. Believe me, I remember it well.

We decided that G. managed to break the land-speed record in his playing of Go Tell Aunt Rhody. Both boys were actually very good and I took everyone for gelato afterwards. Well, I took myself for gelato for my suffering and they happened to be in the car.

On Halloween we hosted the ulpan for Mavis' birthday party. It was smallish but fun. Between Mavis, G, H, Q, and Aida it worked out well; after the party part everyone headed out to The Hilltop for the candy grab.

Here's the birthday girl. Shhh, no need to ooh-and-aahs...she already knows she's cute and it's, quite frankly, embarrassing. I've had some good looking daughters in my life - I know from cute. Nice frock.

I only give you this last one to demonstrate how I am king of my castle. The cats aren't allowed in our room; this is all based mostly upon their initial arrival when I wasn't sure I wouldn't be allergic to them. The rule has remained in force simply because I don't really want cats all over our lovely bed. This is how we seem to find them of late; my domain (and bed) is clearly in jeopardy. Neither of them have an ounce of respect for me.

I need soldiers....

bang bang

I’ve already hit on the Avett Brothers recently but I realized this morning, while listening to their live performance of Murder in the City from the Newport Jazz Festival, that they’ve created something very close to my perfect song. Not only is it powerful but what they’ve created for me falls into the exact same box that holds another three-minute wonder: the box with Guitar Town by Steve Earle. This little box o’ mine holds these specific examples because both are preciously simple, musically, and lyrically stunning. Both are short with no filler and the songs led me deeper into other offerings by the artist. (It didn’t hear Guitar Town until about 1989 or 1990 while I was in Athens; by then Earle already released Exit 0 and Copperhead Road.) I don’t know that I’d call either song my all-time favorite because I’d have to include Someday, Someway and Wagon Wheel, but both are in the top 10. The difference between Murder / Guitar and Someday / Wagon has more to do with the arc of the careers: both Crenshaw and the Old Crows had just given us their first albums. The true power of both is that they draw you into the story behind those that wrote them. If I haven’t posted Murder in the City before, here it is:



Last night as we were finishing up with The Daily Show, X told me had two questions she needed answered. “All right,” I said, “fire away, I’m ready.” Question number one was: “Should I have bangs or not?”; question number two, “How often do you think about death?” My answers were “no” and “twice a year.” She felt the twice a year was a bit specific; I thought the bangs question was weird because I told her I’d never really seen her with bangs so there’s no reason to think I’d desire change. She told me she’s wore bangs ever since she’s known me. I told her, in my head, that she’s a whack-a-doodle. Bangs? I don’t think so.

There’s been a rash of birthdays over the last week that are being sorted of being addressed over the coming weekend. We’ve invited WonderTwin 2 over for dinner so that’s kind of covered. As for G., well, he had a family-ish party on Tuesday night (I was working the election so I didn’t attend) and a friends-come-over party on Sunday. On Wednesday night, after he finished his dinner of perfectly prepared salmon steak, he stop spinning around mindlessly in the living room, turns to me, and asks, “Todd, did you get me something for my birthday?” Hmm, let’s see if I can parse that innocent little question.

t

taking a stand

The other night, I think it may have been before heading out for Quiz Night, G. began a question thusly, “So. If Laurel moves here in the spring does that mean…”. There was actually a pause at this point and my mind quickly filled in any number of issues that might arise if another child ended up in the house: he’d lose his bedroom, he’d have to play nice with someone other than his brother, maybe he’d have fewer chores to do, his personal space and growth might be stunted; any of a number of childhood issues might bubble to the surface. The finish to his sentence of concern was, “…I won’t get to have orange juice with pulp in it?” Right, that’s exactly what I was thinking. I told him that since Laurel likes no pulp and he likes pulp, I would make the sacrifice and have both types available. In my mind the addendum to my answer was, “if this was the great concern of the day then the day wasn’t too bad.”

X has another four days of work at her current firm in D.C. before moving to what she calls a “boutique” firm on the 16th of the month. She’s decided to move on after just over a year and has been hired by a smaller operation that’ll make her work day much happier. (I didn’t spill the beans a few entries ago; I wanted next of kin notified first.)

Even though I reported it earlier I'll reiterate that I think we're moving quickly to winter here. We need to order a cord of wood and get it settled on the porch - fires galore.

More later....when there're more interesting nuggets.