Seems like every morning this week I woke up at 4:30 and couldn’t go back to sleep. So, I’ve definitely been a bit draggy. I guess it’s because of the time change, fall back – but I like that Sunday with an extra hour (that was just last week) so much that I’m not too willing to blame it all on that. I’m sure age and worry and being a female figured in as well.
And it’s been cold, I’ve been wearing down and wool scarves, and I think my pumpkins are frozen on the front steps.
Cold pumpkins; still look pretty cheerful
Scarf Jen sent me from India last winter tucked into my down coat
I’m kind of caught up on grading, and trying to remember what I’ve been cooking.
Let’s see – well, last weekend we saw two important movies, Saturday was Parasite, and Sunday was Jojo Rabbit. Both were at TIFF; Jojo was the People’s Choice, that’s often an Academy Award predictor, but we couldn’t get tickets for either. I think the reviews are calling Parasite more serious – it is really biting social commentary on the divide between the haves and the have nots that’s getting deeper and wider recently. Jojo is much more fanciful and silly but once you stop and think about it for a few minutes, through the eyes of a 10-year-old, WWII’s atrocities probably looked a lot like the film. When the Gestapo come to your house, they are all ridiculously tall and nothing they say makes sense.
We went to see Parasite at 4:00, and came home and ate fried rice and salad, made with the pretty leaf lettuce from the market, for dinner. On Sunday Jojo was even earlier at 2:15, and we had pie and ice cream for dinner.
Cinnamon bun apple pie – we had it for dinner Sunday and that piece in the plastic container was my lunch on Monday.
I got a wheatie in my change when I bought a water at the theater. I added it to my collection.
Monday and Tuesday I had online meetings so as I recall dinners were a bit sketchy, except Tuesday I made veggie burritos with roasted sweet potatoes and parsley pesto (that had been in the freezer ever since I didn’t make quesadillas with them at the cookies party). And also corn, sauteed red pepper and onion, and some goat cheese and this pepper jack I got at the Co-op, Brunkow cheese Firehouse, that’s almost too hot. And I like hot food.
Wednesday I made vegetable soup with the burrito filling that I didn’t put into the burritos – just the veggies, no cheese.
Thursday we had pork tenderloin with the steamed sweet potatoes I’d been wanting to make ever since June. They were quite delicious, even though they don’t look like much without the tahini-butter-soy-sauce-lime-juice sauce and sesame seeds. I added a pinch of brown sugar and a shake of Aleppo pepper.
On Thursday morning I worked at Memorial Library, unpacking books for the Friends book sale. This was my favorite cover:
But I am easily amused. There was also a copy of Weather, poems by William Stafford, a letterpress edition on handmade paper by Walter Hamady’s Perishable Press. Sadly, Hamady died in September. I didn’t know him as well as a lot of my artist and graphic design friends did – I never took a class from him – but I always admired him. I knew Dikko Faust at Beloit – he was the TA in a printmaking class I took, so long ago he was still called Richard.
Friday we went to see Joyce Yang with the Madison Symphony. The first piece, without Yang, Aaron Jay Kernis’ Newly Drawn Sky is about Lake Michigan, was written for the Chicago Symphony, and I think I’d like to see them do it. Yang was very good, she played Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major, and wore a great pink dress. The last piece was Schuman’s Symphony #2, that even to my untrained ears sounded kinda raggedy at the beginning. When we came out afterward, it felt like February – cold wind and ice.
Before the symphony, I ate a salad made with the last of the good lettuce and I unwrapped the last veggie burrito and added the filling, and put an egg on it.
Saturday morning we went to the Farmer’s Market and not very much of anyone was there, because of the cold – that’s farmers or buyers. We bought apples and eggs. I came home and went to yoga; Mark walked. I did the shopping for the cooking class I’m teaching Tuesday – vegetable side dishes, “easy enough for everyday, good enough for Thanksgiving”. I’ll post the recipes here, after.
We had leftover soup and pumpkin muffins for dinner.
And now it’s Sunday, and I’m supposed to be working on regular work, but writing this post, instead. If I get enough done, I get to have a big cup of hot chocolate with marshmallows and watch Poldark, so I guess I best get back to it.