dolphin in the pool!

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"Goodness, greatness, great balls of . . . squash . . ."

wednesday we picked up our first csa basket from southcoast farms and i have to confess that i nearly burst into tears seeing these gorgeous baskets overflowing with fresh herbs, squash, peaches, plums, kale, cucumbers, tomatoes. . . and sunflowers.  the sunflowers did it.  the greens and a few stone fruits i expected, anticipated--but the flowers seemed sow onderfully but necessarily  indulgent.  

to start out we signed up for the every-other-week option for the fall quarter and since nana & papa come out on wednesdays they joined in to share in the bounty (hurrah papa for his healthy commitment!).  i anticipated it would be more fun to share recipes and ideas and was warned by sarah at the farm that they were a lot of work--and once i was finished marvelling at our basket i was glad to have help lugging the 50 pound (i swear!) basket in t he car and then sorting, washing, and storing the produce.  (note to self: break down and get a salad spinner!).  

in the midst of a highly emotional week  (see post below) , though, the entire ritual was wonderfully calming.  it was like yoga for vegetables.  there i was with a pile of dirt crusted, rubberband-bound greens, swishing them in the sink full of cold water while owen devoured all the fruit he could find (michael asked if there was any fruit in the basket today--but it only lasted about 20 minutes in the house) and my dad divvyed our stash--making a rainbow spread across my dining room table while my mom distinguished between kale and chard.  

this morning with michael home we looked up recipes (love the epicrurious app!) over coffee and made our shopping list to round out our fridge then had a family jaunt to trader joe's with owen in charge of the list--and he doesn't mess around ("mom! i don't see bananas on the list.  i'd better add it" and of course we have to break into gwen stephani to spell b-a-n-a. . . well you know how it goes). and i have to add that not only have i never felt so wonderfully nourished--the baskets are full of organic, local produce; rather than buy a giant slab of raide salmon we bought smaller portions of wild alaskan. . . it seems we've managed to trim our grocery bill down considerably.  i'm used to a more sparse refrigerator, buy thoughtful pantry items and with the basket can get wholesale prices on otherwise pricey organic produce.  (mind you all of this menu planning is a gift with michael here but i'm hoping the practice of ingredient-centered meal planning will stick!)

anyhow, we had planned a ricotta-greens salad to go with our grilled salmon (oh! check out this monterey bay app as well: seafood watch) but after watching jamie at home have a "genius barbecue" we were inspired to try his salmon loaded with fresh herbs (he used fennel but i just snipped whatever was growing in my pots--some thyme, purple basil, chives, and parsley) and was excited to use the cucumbers, kale and chard from our basket for the accompanying yogurt sauce and foil-pouch steamed greens.  the salmon was tender and the herbs worked wonderfully across the menu making this a satisfying, healthy and delish sunday night dinner!  we've already decided to add jamie's herb-citrus bbq sauce to our menu next weekend (michael won't leave until monday so we're going to make the most of our weekend together at home. . .).

tomorrow we'll shop for our red curry ingredients while we're in riverside and spend the rest of the week working  our way through our harvest and down the chalkboard! 

not so perky news

who knew i'd need a really, really good laugh today? i questioned whether or not the peeing in the bottle was all that appropriate to post, but you know double-f-swirly-punctuations. i'm still thinking a cry would be good, but it seems not all that productive. 


the short of it is that in the "scheduling" meeting for the new "GSM" (really don't ask me what that means) sites that michael is working on ended with a mandate to buy plane tickets tomorrow--for amsterdam. so that rather than be home on saturday and switch to at least a continental US commute with weekends and workdays at home he's scheduled to begin an indefinite "training" in the netherlands next week for at least a month. and i'm posting this so that you'll know why we probably will ignore you next week and why you won't be getting saturday invitations for dinner. and although i've been hestitant to "hold my breath" because of b&d's notorious indefinable scheduling the combination of an email saying in the midst of the "new schedules" that everyone would "enjoy some much needed time with their families" that we hadn't heard any last minute project extensions with just 72 hours left to depart. and again, i write for my sanity and not because michael particularly enjoys or wants any kind of "wow it must be hard" or that "really sucks" ( and i've been given a green light to acknowledge that despite my "perky" optimism it is hard, and it does suck), and so i can acknowlege it and maybe if not cry just mourn that michael won't be taking owen to aqua swim lessons or be traumatized thorugh another wait at the dance studio. at least for now. tomorrow, next week it may be different. maybe we'll all go to rotterdam for christmas. or spend springtime in houston.

tale of an empty shampoo bottle. it's ok to laugh. you should laugh.

i really wanted a more glorious follow-up post to my post about posting... but for now i'm just working on working and allowing for "do-overs" on days that don't exactly work out.

however,  in the meantime, owen peed perfectly in an empty shampoo bottle in the bathtub.  this i learned as he shouted from the bathroom down the stairs "MOOOMMM! I PEED IN A BOTTLE AND NANA POURED IT IN THE TOILET!".  so no i didn't witness it firsthand.  my dear mom was giving him a bath t--apparently the water was draining down and owen had been pouring water in and out of the bottle singing a dinosaur-ish water-ish song and then the bottle went under the water and owen stared point blank at her and then with the other hand signed "i P-E-E-D" and pointed.  she said it was actually quite impressive how he pointed his peeper right in the bottle and filled it up.  luckily my mom is super nana and had the quick reflexes to grab the bottle and pour the pee in the toilet--where we all agreed it belonged in the first place (i think this is when the above shout-out happened).  i didn't even try not to laugh.

bookmark

need to get to sleep, but i'm bookmarking this so i will re-engage writing in this space. . . dropped michael off at the airport this morning at 6 am but for the first time in years i didn't feel like vomiting afterwards--one week and then we pick him back up. and then we do the really really hard adventure--we all live at home together. excited, anxious, and breathing (finally).

on being a "visiting scholar"

before we moved out to south county i used to take the metro to the downtown san juan capistrano station and read at the diedrich's coffee across from the mission. i checked off more than a few books from my reading lists there and my first "wedensdays" were there when, while pregnant, b. and i chatted about dissertations and diaper bags. like the swallows, i find myself returning often--even if that "return" means taking the few mile stretch down the ortega, crossing the five and cruising down camino capistrano. everytime we take that jaunt it seems there is always something to (re)discover...

and lately just being home has been making me giddy--or at least the claiming of the spaces that make this spot in california home. like the little fruit stand where owen chats with sarah about how broccoli grows, the "tractor art" outside of the garden center where we can buy purple basil, and the corner table at pacific whey where we bring our own play-do and coffee (because the scones are good but the coffee's crap) and where our best friends save us a seat. where the back of the jeep is always sandy and there are books under the pillows. and it's also right here at my desk--the one in the corner of the "home office" (although that name doesn't do the room justice where owen has flipped over the ottoman to make his "desk" and where virginia woolf shares shelf space with the thomas & friendsyearbook). there's no placard on the door and no students waiting in the hall but there is a big old dog under my feet and lizzy the tinfoil lizard on my chair. i know this is a poetically selective inventory of home but after a couple years of a kind of manic nomad-like sense of home i'm in love with my coffee-stained books and bruised heirloom tomatoes even if (especially if) there's not much room in the budget for gas money or drive thrus.

and finally, i'm writing again--and see the end of the hump. the funny thing is this--i've been stuck on chapter three for the last year and most of my writing energy has gone here into the blog and in creative endeavors like love letters and picture books (a necessary antidote to grading and transcontinental commutes)--that since i've been home i've found my passions have centered around the pleasures of cooking, food, and just the simple but necessary pleasures of nourishment. so what does this have to do with my dissertation? everything--just as it is less about theoretical deafness and more about how sign language is a necessary language of modernism it is also about food--and the way it too is another language. . . i'm not spoiling the plot here--hopefully it'll be shelved somewhere in a dark corner of rivera this spring. . .

eating with dinosaurs

we've finished chased by dinosaurs, watched the dramatic conclusion of walking with dinsoaurs and now it seems we're eating with dinosaurs (and reading, and sleeping, and cooking and simply being).

acrocanthasaurus helps with the carnivore stuff--like making turkey sandwiches:

and triceratops and brachiasaurus try to make their way through the herd to graze on the lettuce (but that acrocanthasurus is already at the plate).

tonight, though, we're finishing chitty chitty bang bang and i confess to enjoying every "truly scrumptious" moment!

Harness racing

Project is winding down here in Sweden... weather is definitely getting colder... I'm trying to find some activities to fill my weekends and nights. Last night, I checked out the ponies here in Karlstad (site in swedish, but some good historical pics). I've never seen harness racing before, just used to the kind with the jockeys on their back. Apparently they are not called jockeys in harness racing, rather "drivers", since I guess they have to drive the two-wheel cart behind the horse. It took a while to figure out their betting, and I lost in the first nine races, but made a big chunk back in the 10th race!