On and on

It was kind of a rained out weekend, so I think that’s making this humid, hot, and cloudy Monday morning a little depressing. Plus I just don’t feel quite right today. I have a funny spot on my upper lip that’s worrying me* and I’ve been trying to line up new house cleaners which is also worrying; had to give them a cc number unlike my prior ones who took Venmo, didn’t know how much it was going to cost, didn’t know when they were going to show up. Cleaners is a first world problem for sure.

I can’t escape the feelng that everything’s falling apart.

Anyhow, Saturday after I volunteered at the Farmers Market when the weather was fine, I was supposed to go to the Orton Park Fest to see the Sadies (or “the Sadie”as Steve Sperling said the week before at another friend’s memorial, because one of the Good brothers, Dallas, died in 2022, leaving only Travis) and meet some friends. We were aiming to get there at noon, but it was raining. The Sadies weren’t going to start until 2:45, and it cleared briefly but then was again raining hard at 3:00. So I stayed home, and my friend stayed home. Then it cleared and was a really pretty evening but I was already committed to staying home. I finished my book, The Sequel, in which the body count got crazy high. And made vegetarian and vegan enchiladas, with tempeh, zucchini, and peppers in all of them, with cheese in the vegetarian ones, and black beans in the vegan. And really mild sauce for our student.

Sunday morning I went for a longish bike ride, again while it was fine. Went through the Arboretum and saw the turkeys, four of them and they’re getting big and fat. Came home and made brunch, blueberry pancakes and what was left of the watermelon and local musk melon we had cut up. There’s still an un-cut musk melon in the fridge. Everyone seems to be growing these little ones they call sugar cube melons this year. They’re pretty good and I could probably eat a whole one, or at least half of one, all by myself. And I bought another little seedless watermelon at the co-op today. A little expensive, about $7 for an almost 6 pound melon. I miss Tipi. And us meat eaters got 2 sausage patties and one bacon each. There was also pink applesauce from Morren Orchard’s Alamata pink-flesh apples. I put a few non-pink ones in too, and it stayed pink. The Alamata pink is some strong stuff. I took a picture but the light’s terrible, so you’ll just have to trust me on this one.  

After brunch I made a hedgehog apple tart for us to eat for our Sunday dessert. We had tickets for a play at American Players Theater, and I wanted to take the tart with us, stop at Kwik Trip and buy ice cream, and eat our tart as a picnic before the show. Mark wanted to just eat tart when we got home. Miri didn’t want to vote so Mark won. And then it started raining again, so picnicking, even though it would’ve meant consuming our tart earlier in the evening which is what I wanted, didn’t seem like a hot idea. It was wet and humid when we headed out to APT, and the rain started about the same time as the play. It was Two Gentlemen of Verona as a musical set in 1930s-ish America, kind of Music Man era, lots of suspenders and vests and hats for the men, swishy skirts with tight bodices for the women, with bluegrass music, stand up bass, guitar, violin and mandolin. We were enjoying it, but by intermission the rain was predicted to get a lot harder, and there’d already been some lightning and thunder. The theater decided to take a longer intermission, about 25 minutes, in hope of the storm passing over. I really didn’t want to huddle with everyone else under the awnings of the giftshop and the bathrooms and the concessions stand for 25+ minutes, and this time I didn’t get out voted so we left.  And walked out under a faint rainbow, and were actually home by 8:30 for tart and ice cream.

So that was the second rainout of the weekend.

Besides the soggy weekend, there was our fair share of disappointments and heartbreak the rest of the week. The bunnies attacked and ate the new coneflowers in the backyard. Mark got a fake coyote to scare them away that he has started calling Fred. The name hasn’t stuck with me yet.

Monday we went to see Brandi Carlisle outdoors at Breese Stevens Field. She was great, she is so effortlessly charismatic, you really feel like she is engaging with the thousands of people in the arena. The disappointing part was we went to see I’m With Her as much as Brandi, and even though they did finally get I’m With Her up on the jumbotron, unlike the pic below taken during their first song, I’m With Her got the opening act diss, the sound was never loud enough. And the people behind us talked non-stop, until Brandi came out to sing with them on Wild & Clear & Blue, their last number. And then of course, increasing their cred, Brandi sang Dolly Parton’s Coat of Many Colors with I’m With Her for one of the encores. Introducing the song, Brandi said, Dolly’s been having a bunch of health problems so if you pray, pray for Dolly. And then sadly the news of Dolly’s passing came out the next day. 

It wasn’t quite full as yet, on Monday. The full moon was Thursday, and then the lunar eclipse was Friday. And we did watch that, but I didn’t take any pictures, the iPhone wouldn’t have done a great job. There’s a lot on the Internet if you look around.

I did another round of vegetable processing on Friday, I froze corn and made corn and tomato skin veggie broth, and ranchero sauce, and the pink apple sauce, but somehow that wasn’t as satisfying as Tuesday. The ranchero sauce wasn’t as good as last year’s, and I found a jar of last year’s still in the freezer.  I didn’t like the smell of the veggie broth as much as I usually do, somehow it didn’t have as much of that corn and tomato sweetness as I expected. I made pasta melanzane for dinner, though, and that was pretty good, basically this recipe, but without the summer squash, and with a red pepper thrown in for good measure. And maybe when I haul this year’s ranchero and the broth out of the freezer sometime in the winter they’ll seem better, remind me of summer. Although … maybe that’s the problem. This has been an ungodly shitty summer.  Too hot, then too wet, then too dry. A few lovely days or parts of days to tempt us, then more shitty weather. Scary environmental news, earthquakes and floods. Scarier Trump administration bullshit. Worries about my own aging body. Aye yi yi.

And what else happened the rest of the week, let’s see. I tried to make a loaf of whole wheat bread and it came out flat. I think I scrimped too much on the last rise, didn’t let it go long enough. I have had success with wheat bread in the past, a proper bloomer loaf, puffing up over the edges of the pan.

This time I cut off the tops and bottoms of the flat loaf and used those slabs to make sandwiches. It was so good, I guess I’ll just have to try again. Like right now. Maybe that’ll help me get over last week’s jinxes.

And bummer, man, this one’s flat too. I’ve been trying to do Tanhzhong, maybe that’s the problem. I think maybe with whole wheat bread you need to do a sponge; that’s what I’ve always done anyhow. So I’ll try that next.

*I called the dermatologist this AM and sent them some pictures and they just called back and said they want to wait till it’s been 6-8 weeks since the spot appeared and if it doesn’t go away or gets worse in that amount of time, then they want to biopsy. Mid-October. So sorta whew, I guess.