Stubborn birds

Ben's at that stage where he finds microscopic pieces of debris on the floor fascinating, and he's just so cute scooching around to examine those treasures. I'm all for dirt and germs toughening the kid up, but our floor has been talking back for at least a week now. 

So although it's 930pm I've got the mop out, having vacuumed earlier while Ben was on nap strike yet again. I just got done scrubbing the tubs and toilets; they, too, were looking dicey. There's a heap of dishes in the sink from a batch of cheddar biscuits, made this morning for our awesome PEPS group. Clean dishes in the dishwasher getting cabin fever from having been stuck in there all day. Partly full baby bottles fermenting away on the counter. You would think I could get all this done during normal business hours, but I'll let you in on a little secret. More often than not, the real party doesn't start until we hang the "Closed" sign on Ben's door for the night. 

With all this wild housekeeping happening, I've got a case of stubborn birds this evening. Back tomorrow to take another crack at it.

 

Late to the party

For those of you who know me, it comes as no surprise that I'm running a little behind on the stewed prune revolution. 

Ever since the publication of A Homemade Life in the spring of 2009, purveyors of the shrivelly, sticky stuff have doubtless been scratching their heads at the spike in sales. It's taken me until now to a) read the book, and b) get on board the prune bandwagon. For those of you who, like me, arrive late to the party more often than you care to admit, I'll give you the Cliff's notes: Molly's memoir is a perfect read. It works whether you're looking for something to visit now and again on your morning commute or devour in its entirety on a dark, rainy night. I can say with all honesty that I'd love to make every single recipe she shares in A Homemade Life.

As for the plummy old pals, DH isn't buying the hype. He half-gagged, half-snickered when he saw the giant bag of them perched atop the fridge (though if he read the book, I feel certain he too would end up romanced by her anecdote on prunes and her father). Sparing myself further age or bowel related wisecracks, I waited until DH left for his latest bout of work travel to cook up a batch of these infamous stewed prunes. 

Let me tell you. He's missing out. As citrus and cinnamon simmered those little old ladies into punchy pillows of syrup, I felt myself welcoming this Seattle fall, regardless of any bone-chilling rain or endless variations on gray. The prunes were good warm, but even better after holing up in the fridge overnight. Cliché, schmeeshay. Better late than never.

For old time's sake

CSA, it's not you, it's me. It's just, moving and all, it's been a little crazy. You know. But I do miss you. Hey, you wanna get together for a drink sometime? For old time's sake. 

I couldn't help myself. When I saw the Groupon for a couple of CSA boxes, I bought in. Our first delivery arrived on our doorstep last week, neatly packaged, before our early bird Ben was up for the day. Every CSA has its merits, but I have to sing the praises of this particular one. First of all, delivery? Huzzah. And, you're free to review your shipment before it arrives. If for some reason you have a problem with a certain veggie, you can tell them to please never let you see that veggie's face. Ever. What an accommodating CSA.

We marveled at our bounty of organic goods. It had been a while since we were so flush with produce. I was suddenly feeling a bit panicked. How would we eat it all in time? If only I could have you all over for dinner.

We're working our way through it. Some vibrant spinach leaves went into a savory salad of toasted Israeli couscous, raisins, slivers of leek and roasted pecans the other night. The pears are sitting on the counter ripening, but soon they'll be poached and blended for Ben. He's had a few luscious bites of ripe nectarine and pluot—perhaps unfair for him that his first finger foods were so slippery, but he seemed to think they were worth the effort. Inspired by Ben, we found the green beans (barely blanched, tossed with a touch of butter, soy sauce and black pepper) and cold crispy radishes tasted even more delicious when we ditched our forks. It reminded me of a time when my sister and I stood around a huge pile of green beans in her kitchen, grabbing them off the plate with our hands, chatting the afternoon away.

Two and a highchair

It's almost Sunday here, and for many of you, it already is. Ben will be up any minute now, sleep-crawling and smacking his lips. I'll keep this short and sweet. Us three, we had a very nice day (I trust you all did as well).

There was a perfect table for two and a highchair on a sun-drenched sidewalk outside Volunteer Park Cafe. There were purply tart pluots, and if you've never tasted one, you ought to. Soon. There was strolling strollering. There were cacti and chickens (not in the same place), and a tiny skateboard. There was a beach, there were swings. There was a simple dinner, its easy prep and cleanup making it all the more delicious. 

Whenever Chad has the weekend off, we go bananas packing it all in. Days like this, I go to sleep thinking I've turned a corner on feeling at home in Seattle. 

I adore what Luisa Weiss has to say about home: I am perpetually homesick, so I cook to anchor myself and find joy in the small things: a perfect apricot, the texture of sea urchin, the smell of bread baking in my kitchen. Don't you just love her? I cook to anchor myself. It should be a bumper sticker.

Chicago will always be capital H home and when I miss it, though it's an amalgam of nostalgia, the sharpest knot in my throat is from thinking of my family back there. But the boys, my boys, they too are home. Dear friends who have become kindred spirits, they are home as well. These various homes don't have to be mutually exclusive, do they? The bigger the family gathering, the more rambunctious, the better.

I can't say it any more eloquently than Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros as they call out: Home is wherever I'm with you. I realize most of you probably happened upon this song whenever it first came out, but let's face it, I'm not that hip. I just heard it for the first time this summer and to make up for lost time, I've got it on daily rotation.

Wherever you are this very minute, may you feel at home.

For the love of Friday

Oh snap. I am sorry I didn't end up posting yesterday. It was one of those days. An excursion at Costco that took about four times as long as I'd hoped (and the ensuing unpacking of really giant amounts of stuff). Ben's moratorium on napping. Repeated attempts to get some truly boring data entry over with.

But here I am today. All my mumbled excuses aside, let's get to it. I haven't worried too much about the content of this blog, yet, as my first objective is to become more disciplined. But pretty soon, I'm going to have to find some sort of thread that holds everything together. I'm not sure yet if I'm really a writer, and if I am, what it is I write. Am I crazy to think the answer will reveal itself on its own, organically, evidently? I'm hoping you guys will help me figure it out along the way.

In the meantime, I was thinking it might be nice to have at least one structured day in the week. So every Friday, I'll try and post something a bit more...literary. Let's give it a whirl, starting today.

Just to ease into things, I'd like to share a little poem I wrote for a creative writing class last winter. Starting next week I'll have wholly new bits of prose for you guys, none of this dusting off old stuff.

To take you back to where my head was at, our topic that week was Image, Word, and Detail. In that regard we read and discussed Nancy Willard's poem, "How to Stuff a Pepper," which I think you'll agree is quite a treat:

Now, said the cook, I will teach you
how to stuff a pepper with rice.

Take your pepper green, and gently,
for peppers are shy. No matter which side
you approach, it's always the backside.
Perched on green buttocks, the pepper sleeps.
In its silk tights, it dreams
of somersaults and parsley,
of the days when the sexes were one.

Slash open the sleeve
as if you were cutting a paper lantern,
and enter a moon, spilled like a melon,
a fever of pearls,
a conversation of glaciers.
It is a temple built to the worship
of morning light.

I have sat under the great globe
of seeds on the roof of that chamber,
too dazzled to gather the taste I came for.
I have taken the pepper in hand,
smooth and blind, a runt in the rich
evolution of roses and ferns.
You say I have not yet taught you

to stuff a pepper?
Cooking takes time.

Next time we'll consider the rice.

Yummy, isn't it? I leave you with my response:

The Eyes of March

Sometimes they are babies.

This one, his skin wizened rough,

has seen many days. Felt the earth shift and groan.

Cocooned in the loam of a million things,

from a million years.  

His mother had seen too much beautiful light,  

through unblinking eyes, so many perspectives.  

Her cup runneth over, she put down roots  

as she dreamed of faraway patatas,  

never having known her papas.  

It was a quiet and oculus birth,  

snowbirds caw-cawing overhead.  

The ground thawing and trembling  

once again, under the hooves of mighty ants.  

Now he hunches, hoary and gnarled,  

longing to return to that womb of matter.  

He gets a bath, scrubba scrubba,  

waterfall loud and heavy all around.  

He asks to be dunked thrice,  

and I oblige. It is the least I can do.  

I, the lazy hunter. Picking off this easy target,  

this humble workhorse. Swoosh! the slice.  

Weathered skin yielding to wet,  

dense, whiteness. The pan a-sputter  

with impatient butter.  

Farewell, dear spud. From me you shall receive  

no litany. Just a sprinkling of salt,  

your eyes already faraway,  

on your way home.

Get lost

Seattle is still one big tangle of spaghetti to me. How does anyone find their way around cities that don't fall neatly onto a grid? I love all the water here, but I also love a direct route. 

I'm glad someone invented those handy navigators for the car. Although sometimes I'll be driving along and the GPS lady, perhaps in need of a little excitement, tries to send me flying off a bridge or cliff. I've learned to tune her out when she's talking crazy. It makes me feel a bit like I'm turning into a man.

We bought our GPS just for our move to Seattle. Before this contraption entered our lives, when faced with a new destination, I actually looked at a map. Snapped a mental picture of the route, perhaps jotted down a few notes on the back of a piece of junk mail, and that was that. It was all very efficient and tidy. Grids, people. Grids! I knew where I was headed.

Now, I'm less cabbie, more tourist. Well, I say that, but I always get us (mini-me and me) where we need to go. Just not owing to any navigational skills on my part. I obey the GPS lady, as long as she's not trying to get us to careen off the edge of some sheer drop Thelma & Louise style. And like I said, I'm glad these things exist. Especially now that it takes us an hour to get out the door, due to any number of baby excrement related messes, I won't knock a time saver. 

But if I'm ever going to find my way here, I think I'm going to have to make peace with this feeling of, well, feeling lost.

Linger as long as you can

I think I've mentioned we live on a hill here in Seattle. We were lucky to find this condo with its huge picture windows and a sliding glass door that leads out to the deck. Standing at our kitchen sink, I have the most incredible Cézanne-esque melee for a view; tall pines in the foreground, freight trains and houses tucked into pines on the hill across the way peeking from behind. Which is nice, say, when you're on your fourth round of baby bottle washing that day. Or if you go right up to the window and press your face against it, as Ben likes to do, you can also see Salmon Bay and all the fishing boats moored there. Even the Cascades, on a clear day. We're losing light fast here, but this week we've had some captivating sunrises and sun-drenched afternoons, and believe me when I say we're trying to find ways to can it for the winter.

This hill we live on, however, demands a sense of purpose. And lots of deodorant. The car groans and lurches its way up. Fiddle-y fit cyclists dismount and walk after a point. I once found myself three blocks from home, working through the logistics of ditching our $500 jogging stroller and the groceries we just bought and returning for everything with the car. I got over the hump, literally, but since then we've stuck with the baby carrier for any foot-powered excursions. Truly, even the squirrels and racoons appear to have unusually large calf muscles around here.

When you're in the midst of everything, whatever your things are, it can seem like you'll never make it. But you will. And once you're there, standing at the top of the hill, hopefully you will have a moment to admire the view. Glance back at where and who you've been. Linger as long as you can, because chances are, you'll never be able to find this exact spot again. And just when you thought you had made it, the next hill is right there waiting for you (and it's looking like a doozy). But sure as the sun, you'll make it to the top of that one too. The racoons aren't the only ones growing stronger with every step.

Facelifts of the soul

We were walking in Ballard yesterday when we spotted an amazing robin egg blue mid-century couch in a storefront window. Turns out we had stumbled upon an upholstery shop. It's probably a good thing that couch wasn't for sale. I found myself making a mental note of the location, even though we don't have any furniture to restore or upholster.

The blue couch in all its distinctive vintage detail isn't the first convergence of old and new my husband and I have fallen for. We met an old farmhouse with a smartly appointed chef's kitchen a few years back. We were so taken with it, in fact, that we got married there, replete with simple yet elegant food harvested and cooked by its owner.

It is a wonderful thing when you stumble upon a gem of some sort, and if it's in need of a little TLC, all the better. There is something to be said for looking past that rough surface, and gently—gently—awakening something entirely else.

Until we find an old farmhouse of our own, I'll just have to keep busy with facelifts here and there of the soul. With, perhaps, a few old mason jars or vintage champagne glasses sprinkled in on the side for good measure.

Just right

Ok, so I still haven't quite gotten the hang of this everyday thing. I'm working on it, guys, I swear. After realizing that tumblr felt a bit too much like a 4am bar, NTYMI is making its home at blogger. So far, we're hanging out in sweats with a mug of tea here and it's feeling right.

Besides the technical difficulties, we've had a few scares in the family over the last few days (we're all fine thank goodness). It seems almost every good novel is filled with the seesawing, caterwauling dramas of life. Love. Heartache. Sickness. Health. Birth. Death. Deception. Friendship. Good fortune and bad. But when those events occur in real life, happy or sad, seeing the forest for the trees is much easier said than done.

That whiny dirge about the gray days I just posted? As an addendum of sorts I thought it best to share Friday night at our little place on the hill here in Seattle.

After a warm bath, bedtime story, and some daddy nuzzles and mommy cuddles, sleepy baby Ben drips off my arms into bed.

There's a pear at its peak sitting on the counter. If Ben could speak, I'm convinced he would tell us pears are his favorite. He makes a happy mnnmm sound every time we feed them to him. So that fat juicy little pear is poached and whirred in the Baby Bullet (can't thank my sister enough for this gadget), ready to be mixed with some brown rice cereal tomorrow.

Meanwhile, grownup food needs to happen as well. The chill in the air feels just right for an easy oven meal. DH makes a decadent baked mac and cheese, which I truly love. For about three bites. In my search for a somewhat lighter version (though not so light that it's no longer comforting) I ran across this old Yankee Magazine recipe and bookmarked it a while back. I had all the ingredients, which is pretty much the determining factor in any given evening's menu, and so it was. Subbed in brown rice pasta, a smidge less butter, and a smidge more healthy dose of crushed red pepper. There's a lot to be said for the anticipation built by something cooking away in an oven. So many of my favorite recipes (a simple roast chicken, for one) are best suited for the cooler months. So there's that. As our mac attack baked, we were treated to a sliver of glorious late-day sun off the deck. When the sun is as limited as it is out here in the Northwest, you come to appreciate, nay, relish every moment of it. It's kind of nice, because it forces you to seize the moment.

With a few slices of Tofurky italian sausage (take it from me—it's important to give Tofurky its own pan and a healthy glug of evoo to ensure a nice crisp; crowd it with other elements and like someone who's been at the same job/office/company for too long, it gets a little too comfy, loses its edge and goes soft) and some sweet grilled onion and farmers market peppers on the side, we had an easy fall meal.

The kind that goes really well with, say, a nice smoky glass of pinot noir. Or a dark, creamy stout. And some good company. Whatever you may have on hand. Our Friday night might have already put you to sleep, but in so many ways, it was just right.

We got along fine

I missed my writing appointment yesterday. I'll be back with a post later today. In the meantime, maybe this photo will tide you over. I took it at the end of July. I should have been diligently packing up our house on Bainbridge. But when the sun (!) comes out (before 4pm!) in the Northwest, you can't be stuck inside a silly house doing something so mundane as packing.

Last week, Cliff Mass (University of Washington Professor of Atmospheric Sciences and renowned Seattle weather prognosticator) was discussing how this September will likely stand as a record breaking warm one for Seattle. Indeed, we had a handful of sunny 80-degree (give or take) days around Labor Day, and I basked in every one of them. This week, we're back down to low 60s and gray. I feel a little bit ridiculous lamenting the arrival of fall when most of you probably met up with it weeks ago. The climate here is just so different from the midwest stuff I grew up with. It's no exaggeration to say that 9 months out of the year are gray here. Really, it's more like 10, but I know how sensitive the Seattle folks are about their weather. The Chicago fall, winter and spring I grew up with certainly had its low points. But there were also the moments of sun drenched, crackly leaf underfoot, crisp clear cold, snowy muffled quiet, budding trees, moments of new that mixed things up. The weather in Chicago is far better than the Northwest gives it credit for.

I've become obsessed with weather since moving here. I never gave it much mind because I didn't really have to. I knew what to expect, it did its thing, I did mine. We got along fine. I looked forward to packing away sweaters for sundresses, swimsuits for boots. Though I am at odds with most genres of change, I truly appreciate the change in seasons. People around here wear their dismissal of the perpetual gray and rain like a badge of pride, a small price to pay for the lush landscape. And it's true. Seattle is bursting at the seams with beauty. But oh, the weather.

The first of many birds

Friends, I hope you're out there. It's been so long since I used my voice for something real, something other than cold calls, conference calls, and baby talk. I wouldn't blame you if you're feeling a bit nervous about what this blog will bring. I'm right there with you.

The overwhelming urge to write is oft tempered by the sheer terror of self doubt (being a cynic has only drawbacks, don't let anyone tell you otherwise), but this is my attempt to listen to Lamott and take it bird by bird, word by word, everyday.

The key to all this is everyday. When it comes to outsize projects resembling work, most of you are familiar with my incredible knack for procrastination and avoidance. Which leads to a lot of haphazard, unorganized, frenzied messes. Which I would love to overcome. Perhaps part of the problem is my icky lifelong project to change this. But when it comes to "fun" projects (in the past: vacation itineraries, wedding planning, preparing for baby #1) I'm the first to dive in. Even when the water is teeth-chattering, blue-lip cold, more Pacific than Atlantic.

I'm not sure that writing will ever come easily, but now that my yoga workout consists of lunging to catch our son's head before it bumps into the coffee table, a daily positive practice of sorts can't hurt. My hope is that everyday writing will mince up the great big hairy Writing that's always looming in my mind (the one that slavishly makes me write, rewrite and then rewrite again something so simple as a single sentence, ad nauseam) and if I'm lucky, turn it into little manageable bursts of Yay! Writing!!! Just try and stop me!
 
All this to say that I thank you in advance for bearing with me. It's bound to get ugly in here before it gets better.