1. I’m running in the Susan G Komen Race for the Cure on 3 October, in support of a coworker currently fighting breast cancer and my two aunts who are survivors.
Yes, running, Hermes save us.
2. Received the new J. Crew catalog over the weekend. Flipping through, I saw all the outfits I’ve been wearing all summer. Who knew I was stylish? Or preppie?
I have been a red wine drinker for years, and I even know a little about it – enough to know that I like some weird varietals and to be one of those tiresome people who says things like “I remember when merlot tasted like something other than a burned tree.”
But I always thought that I didn’t like white wine: for me, chardonnay has Merlot Syndrome (they all taste the same, and they all taste of too much wood, which I think is just lazy winemaking) and the other common whites are too sweet for me to want them often. I’ve had some delicious Rieslings, but again: have to be in the mood.
But summer in Houston is so hot that I haven’t wanted red wine, plus I’ve noticed in the past year or so that I sleep less well when I’ve had red wine.
Then we went to Moody Gardens for our anniversary in the spring (a rainy, cuddlesome weekend). It was too wet outside for going out to dinner, so we went to the fancy restaurant in the hotel. I decided on a meal consisting of All the Crab in the World (Dingo had All the Shrimp in the World), so I wanted a white wine. I figured that because I like so many less common red wines (tempranillo, carignan), maybe the same would be true of whites.
I ordered a Martin Codax albariño, and the sommelier perked right up: “It’s one of the great unknowns!” he said. I mentioned that I dislike whites that are too oaky or too sweet, and he said it would be perfect.
It was. That review linked above sums up how I feel about this wine, except that the strong minerality he disliked at warmer temperatures is one of the things I find most delicious about it. The wine is not sticky, like some sweet whites, and it goes well with just about anything – including a bad day, which I’ve had a number of this year.
I have had a very good time trying new and interesting whites. I’ve discovered vinho verde, a Portuguese white with very low alcohol and just a touch of effervescence, that is the epitome of a summer wine.
Another albariño, Condes de Albarei, was also quite good: more golden and thicker than the Martin Codax, with a touch more acidity and less mineral. I liked it somewhat less than the Codax, but it was still delicious.
Oroya Sushi Wine even made Dingo sit up and say “yum!” I haven’t found it locally yet, but you will be unsurprised to know that it goes great with sushi. Very light and crisp, fruity without being sweet. I can’t wait to get some.
Another jumbled-up white is Seven Daughters white (link has music), which I also discovered while eating sushi. It’s a little sweeter than the others, but not syrupy, and it’s very easy to find – I got a bottle at Target.
Last night I tried a Greek wine that was just delicious – a thing I did not know was possible! – Greek Wine Cellars’ assyrtiko. Lots of acid in this one, and maybe a hint of the sea, but refreshing.
Coming up I have yet another albariño to try, a new variety of vinho verde, a muscadet, and a blanc pescador. Will report back.
What do you like to drink during summer?
I’m happy to say that today’s link, my favorite webcomic, Girl Genius, won the 2009 Hugo award!
Yay!
It’s a conspiracy.
My friend Erz said, “poke me and make me write! let’s send each other everything we work on!”
My friend Sweet Pea said, “let’s work on an epistolary project! also send me everything you write!”
My friend Bom said, “I miss writing. Send me some of yours.”
My friend Meg.2 (as opposed to Meg.1, who is not a writer) has us both on a strict new Writing Regimen that involves nagging via gchat. She also spent half an hour on Sunday brainstorming on a story in ways that made the hair stand up on my arms.
Ang. read a flash fiction and had a whole convo with me about *choosing vocabularies*, which caused lights like fireflies in my head.
And Jen emailed with links and a meandering convo about folktales, plus two ideas of her own and a request to read more of mine.
Guess I’d better get writing, if all these people want to read.
1. Centipedes/millipedes
2. Scorpions
3. Silverfish
These three fall under the category Nothing Should Be Simultaneously So Leggy, Crunchy, and Wet. The only centipedes and millipedes I’ve met were small enough to induce only disgust and not running away. I am happy to say that I have never yet met a scorpion, and I’d like to keep it that way.
Our house is full of silverfish. GROSS. I kill them with great glee. And nausea.
4. Earwigs
They pinch. It hurts. I found this out one year in Vermont, when there was an earwig infestation in the drains, and their response to the water in the shower drain was to come running up out of it and pinch one’s feet.
GROSS.
5. Tree roaches (aka Palmetto Bugs).
They fly. And they are horrible. Also, did I mention aggressive? And horrible? Oh, and half the size of my foot? Thankfully, they only come inside when it rains, but they are the one reason why I mind doing nighttime laundry doing the summer. They are in the garage all the time. And they are horrible.
GROSS.
I was in Target over the weekend, wishing that I needed notebooks. Wishing that I needed a new lunchbox, a pencil box, a set of folders (one for each class). Or brand-new book covers cut down from grocery bags that by the end of the school year I would have covered with doodles, notes, and lines of poetry.
I always wanted to use college-ruled paper, because it made me feel sophisticated.
New shoes, new outfits. The outfit for the first day of school was always the most special one, and we’d always take a a picture.
Mom would always make us start getting up early two weeks before school. Every year we would return from Vermont, and there was usually only a week or so before we started having to get up early. And we could complain endlessly, but it really did make the start of school easier that we were used to waking up.
Now it’s the endless grind of working life. Stupid Industrial Revolution.
Not too much writing, or cooking, or eating, or anything else organized around here these days. My dad is having major surgery tomorrow, so I’ve been practicing my coping mechanisms.
Thankfully, this also means getting my charity knitting out of the way early.
Exhibit A:
This is a vest for the Seamen’s Church Institute’s Christmas at Sea program. My friend G. and I cannot read enough Frances Hodgson Burnet, who mentioned it once, so we kind of have to knit for poor sailors having to work at Christmas. We make fruitcake every year, too, so it is possible that she and I are eccentric cranks.
Exhibit B:
Gorgeous, right? I love this yarn. It’s Paton’s SWS – 30% soy. This is only slightly less weird than the last bit of yarn I used, which was 30% “jadeite fiber.”
How does one make yarn out of rocks? I would dearly like to know.
ANYway, this scarf is for the Orphans Foundation of America’s Red Scarf Project, even though it is not red.
I hope that I shall retrieve my brain from its cold storage in Worryville and have something interesting to say – perhaps some time after 3:00 pm central tomorrow.
Dingo and I spent the weekend in Austin with our dear friends P&M, to celebrate(mourn) their moving to Colorado.
At dinner on Saturday, P said, “I think Boadie was just the right cat for what you needed. I miss her.”
And then, you know, I had to take A Moment. But he was right. She was what I needed when I needed her, and I can’t imagine that one gets the gift of a pet like that more than once in a life.
In 1996, the Bedbug and I visited NC for Easter. We were (as usual) staying with his parents. Just before dinner on our last night, his mother was showing me old family pictures.
“I hear a cat!” says I.
“There’s no cat,” she said.
But I insisted (not usual for me, with her or in those days). I followed the sound, and out on their front porch was a tiny tabby kitten, yelling its head off. I tried to creep up to her, but she took off, bounding off the step onto a tree branch, down, around the back of the house, under the air conditioner.
For about an hour I tried to coax her out, with slow movements and a gentle voice. I put out a dish of milk and she crept out, shaking, to lap at it, but went right back under the A/C when I moved.
Eventually everyone else got restive. They took a piece of wood and shoved her out. I threw a towel over her, picked her up, and put her into a cardboard box that I left by the back door.
Halfway through dinner I took a piece of my salmon out and put it in the box, then walked away.
After dinner, I opened the box and she stared up at me with her yellow-green eyes, purring. I held her and played with her while we sat in the back yard, and she never made any move to run away. In the car, she climbed around, talking a little in a scratchy voice but perfectly calm. At my parents’ house, we gave her bread and milk, which she ate while purring. She slept in a cat carrier in her room. In the middle of the night she started crying, and I stuck my fingers into the carrier. She bumped her head into my hand for a scratch, then settled back to sleep.
I said that we already had 2 cats at home, and that it would not be fair to her or them if I took her home with me.
We got in the car to the airport, and I started crying. I cried all week long. On Friday, I called my father from work (right out in the middle of the room, on the one phone in the department).
“I have to have the kitty,” I said.
He was not surprised. But he did note that my mom was not going to be happy about not getting to keep the kitty.
Kitty was now christened Boadicea, and my mom complained (for the rest of Boadie’s life), because she had already named her Tigerlily.
There were further adventures in NC: Boadie had worms in her lungs and nearly died, and my parents’ cats had to go on medication. I paid to have their carpets steamed. After a month she was healthy and certified to fly.
She came to Chicago and was supremely unconcerned to be introduced to two large adult boycats. She liked to run at the sofa at top speed and slide under it on her belly until just her tail stuck out.
Once she was investigating a paper bag and got the handle stuck over her back leg. She raced from one end of the apartment to the other probably 4 times before anyone could stop laughing long enough to help her.
She slept on my chest.
When I left the Bedbug, I took the tea kettle, a mug, the stereo, the futon, and Boadie. She was the one thing I would’ve fought him tooth and nail for.
We lived together for about a year and a half in a 600-sqft apartment that I called GirlHaven. For the first month or so, she slept on my chest, just like she had as a kitten. She liked People Food (especially beans), so sometimes I would put some beans or a little cut-up chicken on a saucer and put it at a place at the table while I ate dinner, and her little head poking up over the side of the table just made me laugh and laugh.
I dragged that poor cat all over the place. She hated to travel and would cry in the car. During the drive from Chicago to TX she finally gave up on life and sat in her litter box in the carrier, moping. I wrote a diary for her that started out “Hell. I am in hell.” During that trip, the only thing she would deign to eat was the meat from an Arby’s sandwich, so we ended up having to make special stops just for her.
Not that she was spoiled, mind you.
Austin was where she learned to hate other cats. The windows in our apartment started at ankle height, and one night at 3 a.m., a giant black cat came crashing through the screen. I woke up to bangs and yowling, and when I went running out, Boadie was on her back under the screen, all four legs up, fighting a cat 3 times her size, keeping it out of Her House. She was furious (and the management folks were much bemused the next day: they locked up the office to all troop up and see the cat-shaped screen).
After that, she would howl and throw herself at windows, fighting with any cat she’d see. The cats in our Houston neighborhood would come sit calmly outside and watch her have her fits. I wonder whether they miss the entertainment.
She was pretty shy, and was not the kids’ biggest fan. When they would visit, she spent a lot of time sitting on Dingo’s shoes in the closet.
When we lived alone together, I got into the habit of talking to her constantly. We would have long conversations in which I would take on both parts, but she would sit and stare at me when I talked.
Any time I put out my hand, she would run over for a scratch.
At 9:45 every night, if she wasn’t already next to me on the sofa, she would hop up and start the Bedtime Stare.
Every day when we arrived home from work, she would be standing in the windowsill by the door, waiting for us.
When I was broken and safe and free all at the same time, it was me and Boadie starting out fresh in the world together. We had some goofy, crazy-cat-lady habits. She was my companion and comfort during some really dark times, and she always made it clear that I was the thing she loved most in the world. She was mine.
Missing her is still sharp and difficult. I think it will be for a long time.
When I’m feeling down, I like to go to Kiva, find a loan that needs only one more donation, and complete it.
Funding people’s dreams: it eases any sadness.
I’ve been thinking about breath lately, and the ways in which one’s own breath reflects the mind: the long, slow breaths of peacefulness; the shallow pant of illness or pain; the fizzy hyperventilation of joy, of falling in love.
Words are just the same. The other night I took a poem about running and gave it meter, a thudding rhythm of iambs that launch themselves up at the end off an anapest.
Satisfying work, that.