Toasting— temporary hiatus or fine’?

The Poe toaster– shall his annual visit become nevermore?

The tradition which spans over 60 years evaporated in the dark of this morning’s earliest hours. The Poe toaster did not come and deliver his yearly treat to Poe’s grave. No roses, no cognac and the delicious mystery abruptly interrupted.

For whatever reason the toaster was unable, or unwilling, to visit, I hope it is a temporary condition.

“The true genius shudders at incompleteness – and usually prefers silence to saying something which is not everything it should be.” ~EAP

Winter Reminiscing

Yesterday, I read Claire Wolfe’s latest BHM article, Understanding the Music: Winter in the High Desert. I always enjoy her articles, but this one in particular made me chuckle and reminisce. For I, too, have lived through the phenomenon of the frozen front door.

Mobile homes, like trailers, often have metal doors, and they truly are not tight-fitting to the door jamb. Now, unlike Ms. Wolfe, I did not at the time have any pets with imminent toileting needs. I did, however, have a baby and a husband whose handiness skills I lacked confidence in. Also, we’d been through flooding (thank goodness for the mistake of the moving co. and our mobile home was 2 feet higher in the air than it should have been), power outages due to high winds (no wood stove) and deep snow in a span of about three months.

Each incident we blundered through gave me less confidence in the team work aspect of my marriage. So when we experienced the frozen door phenomenon, thanks to a rare silver thaw, I was feeling pretty blue. How were we going to pull through this latest call from the weather entities who were nudging us ever so gently to move? We tried brute force and some hefty shoulder bumps, but the door would not budge. Our immediate neighbor was a scrawny guy with little handyman sense so he was not much help.

And then we experienced a light bulb moment. While the door on our little home was not tight-fitting, our windows were. On the front of our home was a bay window with sections of glass that opened vertically from the floor up. We slid up a window, popped out the screen and my husband scrambled (barely) out onto the high bank of snow that met the window sill. I handed to him, through the window hole, a hammer, which he used to beat the ice on the door until it broke away. This freedom exercise had to be repeated every few hours to keep the door from remaining frozen to the door jamb.

This experience was one of the few successful, unifying moments in our marriage. We worked well as a team for an afternoon. We could use the front door as needed.

By the way, we did have a back door and it was more protected from the elements due to the way the home was positioned. It probably would not have been frozen shut by the silver thaw, and we could have used it, however during the high wind scenario a month prior there was a small problem. The door was shaking in the wind (remember, these particular type of doors do not fit well into their jambs) and the back door was shimmying and shaking. My husband was checking on the soundness of the door when some how it opened. He claimed it blew open, my theory is he opened it to try to slam it shut more tightly. It does not matter now— I did not see what happened, only the aftermath. Anyway, however it happened the door opened up and the wind blew it right off its hinges.  The door gave my husband a bit of a ride (mobile home and trailer doors are surprisingly light). We ended up having to nail it shut.

The frozen door phenomenon taught me a few lessons– 1) to think outside of the box a little 2) to not completely lose faith 3) to enjoy the little things. Although a royal pain in the ass, the silver thaw was bright and beautiful, like the whole world was painted with translucent liquid sunshine.

Merry Christmas

What a lovely day. Us inhabitants of Lewville have enjoyed being idle. It’s been relaxing, rejuvenating and fun. I am oh – so – thankful we carved out a little slice of time to be idle, to be just a family just kicking back for a day.

It’s so wonderful for me to remember and meditate on what Christmas means personally to me. Family, celebrating being together, and the birth of Christ. Here’s a little slice of my childhood which shares so eloquently the beauty and joy Christmas has been to me. I’d lost it for some time, but I think I’ve found it again. It’s a bit dusty and tarnished, but with a good cleaning will shine in my heart again.

It be Talkin’ Like a Buccaneer Day. Be referrin’ to me by me pirate moniker, savvy?

My pirate name is:

Iron Bess Bonney

A pirate’s life isn’t easy; it takes a tough person. That’s okay with you, though, since you a tough person. You can be a little bit unpredictable, but a pirate’s life is far from full of certainties, so that fits in pretty well. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
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We won! WE WON!!!

Yes, we won! It was very exciting and the first time in a long time. And we won!!!!!

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The bluest skies are in Seattle? Not today— it’s kind of resembling LA

As I type it is 97 degrees in my house. 97 flippin’ degrees!!! It’s even hotter outside, still, at 7:25 pm. The internet states it’s about 95 degrees, but I am sure the internet is wrong because it is 97 FLIPPIN’ DEGREES IN MY HOUSE!!!!!!!! And it’s a bit smoggy outside. And humid. And hot. And I am getting a bit cranky. And I have to take Rosie to pick up some flip-flops so I better go.

Ooohhhh, the car has AC. Yummy!

MIA: Blame the knitting

Well, a few other things have been occupying my time, too, but when I’ve been online I’ve been hanging out at Ravelry. Do you knit? Do you hang out at Ravelry? Drop me a line (email address in left side bar).

I taught myself to pick up stitches yesterday! Wooo Whoo!

On the economic front, we’ve done about 30% less business in 2009 than we did in 2008, to date. Huge, huge bummer. But at least we’re still hanging on by a finger or three. Some other print shops in the area haven’t been so fortunate. Keep us and our client base in your good thoughts, please.

Something is eating all of our lovely squash flowers as soon as they open and show us their lovely peach colored complexion. Bah! We’ve harvested a handful of yellow pear tomatoes and 6 jalapenos. My fennel hasn’t grown much. I want a good amount of fennel seed, so I hope the plants get a little bigger.

How’s summer splashing going in your swimming pool?

Are we too often mired in absolute stasis?

Yin and Yang, dark and light, female and male, wetness and dry air, cool and heat.

Until Sunni brought up the exploration of yin and yang, I honestly hadn’t given it much thought. Not in those particular terms. The symbol was, in my mind, associated with badly drawn ink, stickers from gum ball machines and a vague sense of “good versus bad.” Thinking of yin and yang within the thought of complementary opposites is an interesting exercise.

Yin and yang are complementary opposites within a greater whole. Everything has both yin and yang aspects, which constantly interact, never existing in absolute stasis.

Lew and I, our relationship, is an interesting study of yin and yang. He moves forward and learns by doing, at times by wild trial and error. This includes some button pushing =). I move forward with an air of caution, wanting to study the situation, read a little about it and maybe talk to someone who’s dealt with the particulars of the deal in question before. Yet, I’d say that we both learn better by doing. He leans toward the quickest route that provides spot on accuracy. I lean toward memorization and habitual repetition; once I’ve mastered that, I’m ready to learn the quicker route. He seeks finite accuracy and I seek good enough. What’s 1/16″? Both groups of thought are necessary to complete the task, ironically.

Musically, we both are drawn to complex, hard-driving, dynamic music. On the surface, it appears that we both listen to genres that are musically connected. The more I listen to Lew’s music favorites, it’s fast paced, driving, aggressive, yet complexly controlled. Metallica, Yngmie Malmsteen, Gary Hoey, Jerry Cantrell, Steve Vai. You’d noticed if the guitarist flubbed it. Punkishness is my first musical love— the raw emotion, the chaos, the percussion, the anti-establishment appeal . X, Nina Hagen, the Ramones, Oingo-Boingo, the Violent Femmes. Errors are not hidden but embraced, made the focal point sometimes. My musical feel good meter morphed over the years to include PUSA, Primus, the Beatles and Tom Petty’s whole discography. Lately, I’m drawn to instrumental pieces, from the jam sessions of Galactic, to the new-age electronica of Ratatat, to the instrumentals of Apocalypticia, Vitamin C Quartets and The Section Quartet. And flamenco guitar styling. This new musical yumminess of mine, along with our mutual affinity for Buckethead, shouts never existing in absolute stasis in my opinion.

I could go on and on. I read books, Lew reads magazines. I read for pleasure mostly, he reads for information mostly. He’s drawn to fun, fast cars. I’m drawn to fun, functional cars. His favorite colors are red, black and white. Mine is green. His timing in the kitchen is stronger. More of the food ends up on the table, warm, at the same time. I’m better at orchestrating the chopping, mixing and clean-as-you-go. He’s the cat whisperer and I’m still getting used to sharing my home with a cat. I promoted heavily for sharing our home with pups– he wasn’t so sure. We’re both head-over-heels in love with our canines.

Think about any relationship you’ve had that’s deep, refreshing, frustrating, emotional, fulfilling and continually evolving. I’m not referring specifically to people you’ve been romantically involved with, either. Do you see the qualities of yin and yang within the perimeters of the relationship? I bet if you mulled it over for awhile, you’d see a bunch of yin and yang spill out of your memories. Is this perhaps where the cliche opposites attract may have found its beginning? Opposites may attract, but without the yin and yang, or the open-mindedness to look for it in both the good and the bad times, what may have the potential to become complementary opposites may devolve into polar opposites. Complementary opposites complete each other. Polar opposites repel each other. In the yin and yang of life, both modes have the same humble beginnings; yet through the exercise of free will, stumble down the lanes they decide to navigate.

One victory out in the garden

Look at those luscious little gems! The photo is of my fourth harvest of our strawberry patches, and the biggest harvest to date.

The biggest berries came from the plants I gave up for dead last year. They didn’t like the place I planted them previously so I moved them to a nicer, sunnier spot in the yard. They promptly turned brown and looked devastatingly deceased. And then this miraculous thing happened. One by one, new, fresh, richly green leaves emerged from the brown crumbles to form the kick-ass strawberry patch it is today.

The little berries are the sweetest ones. I think they are small due to the amount of shade they are bathed in daily. I’m thinking of moving those plants to a sunnier lo-cal in the fall…. but will the berries remain as sweet? Don’t let their diminutive stature fool you. Those berries are incredible!

Best of all, I didn’t have much to do with these plants’ success. They just needed some time and water to do what they do best— grow amazing strawberries for my family to consume.

Exchanging G’day Mate for Howdy Y’All

Here we thought Mr. Skeeter was a regular pup of mainly Australian Cattle Dog origin. The last three weeks have been interesting, as Mr. Skeeter made the decision he’s an Australian Cattle Hound Dog. He’s been baying like our hound doggie, Miss Virginia, but in the cattle dog’s higher pitched voice.

While we find the auditory spectacle hilarious, having both dogs bay is loud. I’m sure in this warm summer, open window weather that the baying is quite annoying to our neighbors. One of the many downfalls to suburban living.

While the saying goes, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” it states nothing about the old dog teaching the younger one new stuff. Our hound dog has passed on her deep south, hound-y legacy to a younger, more southerly, generation.