We cut our grocery bill by about a third this week, to cover whatever car option we go with (resurrect the Volvo? Buy the Smart Car?), and ironically this means that we eat a little better: more of what we buy is cheap basic ingredients, so that more of the day-to-day hooey can be made at home rather than purchased ready-made. All our bread, sweets, and sauces for stuff are homemade, therefore yummier, if more time-consuming for someone who SHOULD be working on docent-training manuals.

Tonight: Grilled lemon-yogurt chicken (a recipe 4000 years old and still being cooked has to be good, after all), homemade pita bread, salad with a tomato and mint from our garden, and black-bean hummus (which hubbles has already requested for lunches in future-- a good sign that it turned out well).

LEMON-YOGURT CHICKEN

Marinate chicken in a sauce made from:

* a spoonful or so of pureed garlic
* half a container of plain yogurt
* two tablespoons or so of lemon juice
* a teaspoon or even less of lemon zest-- depending on your citrus cravings
* a good dose of dried herbs d provence
* smidgeon of paprika (I like Croatian sweet paprika, but I'm biased)
* salt and pepper to taste.

Chicken should marinate for three hours at least. The yogurt does wonderful things for chicken: it tenderizes the meat a bit without turning it to mush. It browns and sweetens a bit on the grill without tasting burnt. And its tang is the perfect conterpart to the sweet paprika and the bright lemon.

Yum.

For no real reason, here's a picture of a hot-air balloon in the shape of the St. Gallen cathedral.

My grey Volvo may be dead. Apparently, the brakes and a whole tangle of wiring is corroded, and repairs cost more than an 89 Volvo sedan is worth. The local public radio station is interested in taking it for auction, so it might provide me with a nice little tax deduction as a farewell gift, but it's likely that it will soon leave our little family.

What car might be taking its place?

A Smart car.

A little black Smart car. If I put my kayak on the roof, it will actually be longer than the car.

And if I get it, I need never parallel park again. Nota Bene:



If I have to give up the Volvo, getting a Smart car may just take some of the sting out of it. I guess I'll know within a few days...

ME (in e-mail to Plum's former owner): I was just about to put some banana bread in the oven, and ended up dropping the pan of banana batter because Plum was poised to jump into the oven. I clanged the pan down onto the top of the stove with a thankfully small batter-splash and shooed him away before he became an entree on tonight's menu. Whew!

FORMER OWNER O' PLUM: Oh! I forgot to tell you he does that. He loves to jump in the oven. I used to use mine to store boots in, and I'd have to shoo him out before I closed the oven door all the time. The pilot light kept it nice and cozy in there.

ME: He's safe. And I love the mental image of you keeping your boots in the oven. Boots!

FORMER OWNER O' PLUM: Oh, wait... it was a problem because your oven was actually on. No boots involved.

ME: No boots. I rather think it's sad, though, cuz boots would've added that extra oomph my banana bread so often lacks. Daggit.

FORMER OWNER O' PLUM: Pat his head for me.

1.) Congratulations to Larkvi on passing French AND Major Fields! I was holding my breath hoping that French would work out for you. Good luck with your photo shoot and studies in Ethiopia.

2.) I want to make these.

Tales to come:

Tale the first-- a cheese pilgrimage into the High Peaks Region of the Adirondacks, to Nettle Meadow Farm, home of world-renowned Kunik cheese. I patted the goats and the barn cats. I swooned at the feet of the cheese guru. I nearly wept. I actually converted Hubbles and a trailing boy scout to the Religion That Is Cheese.

Tale the second-- kayaking on Mirror Lake in Lake Placid, NY, just as the first blush of autumn color is coming into the trees.

Tale the third-- scouting out a few locks on the Erie Barge Canal to go through on a future kayaking trip. They promise they'll actually activate the locks for me and my miniscule boat.

Tale the fourth-- tonight's experiment with chevre en croute, with a mature chevre from Nettle Meadow Farms. Mature chevre is nothing like the tangy, soft, ice-cream-like young chevre that most of us have tried and loved; it's like an earthy camembert made with light, tart goat's milk. I bonded with one of Nettle Meadow's owners over this six-month aged chevre. It's a revelation.

Tale the fifth-- I wuv my hubby and my snuggle-addicted cats.

** slips into cheese-and-happiness-induced coma **

Plum's thumbs





This is as close as the two kitties will get to one another, but at least they're in the same room-- both of them are on the bed!

Work and not-work have been rough, rough in the way that leaves you feeling drained and tired and lacking in all accomplishment, so I decided to make the most of this last bit of summer and went out on my little wooden kayak.

I was out on the boat from noon until 6:20, and I am sunburnt and happy and muscle-tired, a GOOD tired.

I saw cormorants swimming along with just their heads sticking out of the water, like the Loch Ness Monster, and one of them even dived just in front of my boat, sinking like a submarine. I saw a kingfisher dive-bomb the clear water of the inlet, though he was too far away for me to see if he caught what he was diving for. I baked to the point that I look like I spent the day in the microwave. I came home to aloe and cool showers and Advil and kitties who missed me (Plumkin actually jumped into the shower with me the second I turned the water off).

I have ten pounds or so of red, ripe summery home-grown tomatoes in my freezer.

I am going to sit back with an Apricot wheat beer to watch Mad Men before I even think about doing any work.

All in all, a good day.

The winner at the 2004 American Cheese Society conference in Milwaukee was Gran Canaria, a cheese made from a blend of cow, goat, and sheep's milk. All of the animals are grass-fed (which generally means more flavor in the milk, and thus, in cheeses made from the milk) in Wisconsin's Carr Valley. I've got a li'l chunk of it, and since it's grey and rainy, I'll be inside with snuggy slippers on, sipping white wine and nibbling on the prizewinner. Mmmmm. I'll edit this post to let you know how it is...

I am now the curator of IBM's corporate collection in Endicott, NY (the company maintains a presence in tiny Endicott, NY because that's the site of their first factory). Woo.

Hubbles and I just adopted a new cat, a homeless waif who once belonged to an old friend of John's. Said cat came to us as a healthy, stressed 15-pound adult cat, a tabby with khaki feet, belly speckles, a funny little face, and THUMBS!!! Who doesn't love a cat with thumbs?

Erm, that's all, really.

I am taking a conservation workshop at Cornell this week, and the grant for the workshop provides all the following for participants (drool glands at the ready? Oooookay!)

* 1 8-glass Brita pitcher + 1 water filter
* 1 Farberware stainless steel non-reactive double boiler
* 1 tiny little bone folder with a hole in it that can be worn as a pendant (makes me squee)
* 1 metal conservator's spatula
* 1 artists' knife (a glorified box cutter)
* 1 Kinetronics SW-100 anti-static brush
* 1 PURA Setola S.31 #6 natural-bristle brush
* 1 Princeton Art & Brush Co 4050W wash brush
* 1 set curved dissecting forceps
* 1 Alvin 30" stainless steel cork-backed ruler
* wonderful bibliography
* samples of various buffered and pH-neutral archival papers and matting materials
* binder filled with free photocopies of several relevant paper-conservation articles
* free 20+ hour consult with paper conservator
* free 2+ hour consult with curator of Johnson Museum's print collection curator.
* 3 ounces reconstituted jin-nori chemically neutral wheat starch paste
* 3 ounces dry jin-nori chemically neutral wheat starch paste
* 6-hour consult with photo restorator just for swank

I'm woozy with paper-lust and the need to experiment with jin-nori...

T
his Friday night I'll be setting up the 8-person tent (over 6 feet tall, folks! With its very own pink plastic flamingo lawn ornaments out front!) to camp out for the Friends of the Library Booksale-- anyone who's interested in joining me should comment below.

It's rather a cushy deal as campouts go: there are bathroom facilities available, the Ithaca Bakery (with baked yummables and hot cider) is about 50 feet from our campsite, I generally bring decent food, I plan to load up my computer with Doctor Who episodes ... the tent will even have carpeting.

Could someone e-mail me some of the directions to the Eddy homestead? It has been rather hectic around here of late, and I somehow lost track of the lovely directions Tam gave me. (For the sake of those who don't know Tam, and who might think I'm an idiot for simply not Mapquesting... the address is a rural delivery number, not a street address).

They's getting hitcheded! THIS WEEKEND!!!!

All right: I need to have some spoiler-heavy discussions RIGHT NOW.

The gallery owner called my house again today. I actually had to hang up on him. What the HELL?!

It's here. It's P-Day: Potter Day. Tonight I'm going to go to my grocery store just before mignight, hot cup of coffee clutched tight in my hands, and pick up my copy of HP7 (along with some rotini and some peanut butter, as we're out), and rush home in the wee hours of tomorrow morning to start reading.

I know I'm a big ol' nerd, but I don't want to be spoilered for this book, as I was for the last one. Note to BBC: when you report a story about how some remarkably knavish souls made a huge banner bearing key Potter plot points that could ruin the reading experience for fans who'd just bought their newly-released copy of HP6 and hadn't even made it home from bookstores yet to read it, it might be kind to not disclose that the banner said, in 3-foot high bright-red letters, "SNAPE KILLS DUMBLEDORE".

I just want to get the book read before somebody decides to tell me all the juicy bits.

Also, on another, far more fattening note: Tamma and I made a really wonderful pan of lasagne AND some donuts. I will be sending a nice "I'm so sorry" Hallmark card to my coronary artery in the first post.

The last three episodes of this season of Dr. Who feature CAPTAIN JACK HARKNESS, He Who Should Not Be Mentioned Without Many Many Capital Letters. Torchwood was abysmal, but I watched every single episode, entirely because of Captain Jack. He's back on Dr. Who, where a rakish captain can be a rakish captain. Now that he's back on Who, where the writing is better and the characters he has to interact with are more 3-dimensional, I'm sure to be very happy. At first, I'd planned to watch all three of the episodes in a row, but I want to share them with John, so I'm pulling myself away from the screen for now.

Special bonus, Derek Jacobi is in one of the episodes. Jacobi has acted beautifully in a number of things, playing a worthwhile Claudius (the best Claudius I've ever seen in ANY MEDIUM, frankly), and a heavily-made-up Cadfael, and and and... but every time I see him, in the back of my head I hear a whispered, "O, for a muse of FIRE!". I'm looking forward to seeing what he brings to Who.

I'm hoping that he, Jack, and an alien settle down in a distant exotic locale together....

No, must not get caught up in such thoughts. Nope. Not at all...

The gallery got in touch with me and a.) said they understood my frustrations over the lack of commission income, and b.) offered me a promotion with an employee or two under me.

Not wanting to deal with the whole nail-baiting, weeping-hysterically-in-the-closet-because-a-misunderstaning-might-mean-I-don't-make-rent bullshit again, I refused.

I was enough a model of personal restraint not to suggest they perform act of sexual intercourse upon their own persons, though I was sorely tempted.

Somehow, an 'I understand your frustrations' isn't enough after one of them screamed at my husband over the telephone.

So nice to be wanted, though, and to have them come asking after me. Thanks! This has been the best birthday EVER!

Know this, all and sundry: Tamma makes a GREAT meatball.

Also, at her apartment, I learned the basic, primal joy that comes from deep-frying random objects. Once a deep fryer is in operation, it calls to you, hypnotically: take the whole-wheat sugar-free cookie, and fry it! Fry your stale graham crackers, and they will be restored to scrumminess, if a rather greasy and calorie-laden scrumminess! Every meal MUST end with donuts! Fresh, piping-hot, beautiful donuts... which go very well with Reisling, by the way-- that woman has tought me more in one evening than some of my undergrad profs did in an entire semester. None of them, for example, knew how to properly distract a floofy cat to get it to subject itself to a brushing...

Goddam gallery tells me that $500+ of the commission I was expecting isn't coming to me-- a misunderstanding. Oops and sorry.
pp
I hope my creditors accept 'oops' and 'sorry', considering that we live on a tight budget, and that when I figured out how to live within that budget for this month, I figured in that 'misunderstood' five Cs.

Fuck.

And can I come back to Cleveland sometime soon? Well, no-- that trip costs me several hundred dollars, and wouldn't you know it, I'm several hundred fucking dollars short this month. Whaddyaknow.

But otherwise, all's peachy. For example, I have berry-scented bubble bath, and oeach-colored toenail polish, the sorts of things that make up for a whole lot of ills.