OBX

Riding the ferry to Ocracoke right now and I can't believe how different this year is from last. Mostly because I'm so happy. There's no panic, no hidden panic. There's just big deep breaths and smiling smiling smiling.

If you are crushingly sad or worried in a way that closes you up inside, please get help or take a break or practice yoga or something.  The world is a spectacular joy-filled place. I promise.

Okay, I look a little crazy eyed there. But that's a lie. That smile is a genuine sane smile . :)

Summer is winding down

Despite the cool weather this summer, it's been a pretty great year for the garden--loads of tomatoes, beans, cukes, nasturtiums, chard, swiftly growing basil, zucchini, squash, and plenty of fresh herbs.  And beyond the weather, it was nice to have the time to really tend to the garden.  I stuff an awful lot of food growth in to a teeny tiny space and so weeding and trimming and staking regularly makes a huge difference in yield and overall garden prettiness.

Spending time gardening is curative and restive--both things that, frankly, I needed quite a bit of.  It makes a small sustainable peace within me. The joy of stewarding the land (even such a small plot). The connection to my family and my family's history of gardening and farming. The pleasure of--for a few short months--eating food that tastes deeply like food and that I know is chemical free and sustainably grown. The pride that comes from feeding that food to my friends and family. Gardening can truly fix what ails you.

There was a moment while picking beans in July and throwing them into my rubber trug, that they made this sound--a little hollow thump and roll--that I suddenly remembered so clearly hearing as a child when helping out on the farm. It was a moment that made me nostalgic and glad. It's a pleasing sound and I felt lucky in that moment to have heard it and remembered for a moment weeding and picking in the garden in the bottomlands with Mom and Dad and Rich and Grandma and Grandpa Stewart.

And so, a wonderful summer, and somehow it's already coming to a close. This may be the best summer I have ever had. I suspect that Dan might say the same. But the hyacinth beans are blooming and the cicada are grinding long and loud during our front porch Scrabble games and butternut squash are beginning to show up at the farmer's market--all sure signs that things are winding down.

 

In honor of the close of summer coming, I thought I would borrow from Pip from Meet Me at Mike's, a fun way to take stock of what is happening right at this very moment. . .
Making : Animal head pillows, hoping they turn out.
Cooking : Just found a recipe for California Roll Nachos.  Yes, please.
Drinking : Iced Tea, by day.  Gin and Tonics by night.
Reading: I don't think I want to admit to what I am currently reading, but David Mitchell's new book is on its way to the house.
Wanting: More core strength.  My new thing is not worry about thinner, only stronger.
Looking: at all my favorite blogs as I do every weekend.  a great mix of design and farming/cooking sites. One of my faves is Whole Larder Love--farming, hunting, gathering in the Down Under.
Playing: Scrabble with Dan, but also trying to learn ukulele
Deciding: What to do with my life.  How at 40 can I not know what I want to be when I grow up?
Wishing: I could have all the dogs
Enjoying: Dan's and LP's company.
Waiting: For a match with a birth mother.  I am ever so ready to mother somebody.
Liking: Lots of cool kid's stuff on pinterest. While we wait, I am planning.
Wondering: where I will be this time next year
Loving: Dan, LP, everyone, life, being creative, reading, being settled and centered
Pondering: How to make a cloth totem pole and beautiful tailored wool clothes for dolls
Considering: inviting people over while Dan is out of town--pretty late notice, though.
Watching: whatever I want. Dan goes to Hopscotch later this week.
Hoping: that I will continue to be happy and well
Marvelling: At what a difference a year makes.
Needing: Cool weather again so that I can start cooking fall food.
Smelling: So sad. . . I don't really have a sense of smell
Wearing: A new Boden tunic--far too often
Following: Steve Mulcahy on facebook. He cracks me up.
Noticing: the signs of the impending end of summer.
Knowing: that soon turning forty-one-derful will be lovely
Thinking: about what big project to knit next.  Need a trip project.
Admiring: This Naterade cartoon. being good too each other is sooooo important.
Sorting: through critters for posting on etsy.
Buying: A small boost to my fall wardrobe from Boden.
Getting: ready for our fall vacation to the Outer Banks.
Bookmarking: Library books.  having a library card and using it has been amazing.
Disliking: Ebola. . . there should be a much harsher word for this, but is this freaking anyone else out?
Opening: An Amazon box soon filled with books for our late September vacation
Giggling: at old Frank Sidebottom videos.  So joyful and weird.
Feeling: Lucky
Snacking: On cherry tomatoes. They're coming out our eyeballs.
Coveting: Moleskin Livescribe Notebooks, check it.
Wishing: That I get to go to MFK for my birthday dinner.
Helping: Hopefully, my friend Piper with her new teeny boy when her man returns to work
Hearing: Dan practicing in the basement.

You should try this.  It's fun.  Thanks, Pip!

LP in late day sun

I was playing with sir fluffy pants late in the day, sun slanting low over the garage. I was being blinded as I was throwing him the toy, and while usually not great light to photograph directly into, I snapped blind shots of LP running around anyway.

I got a lot of bit of nose and toy, washed out back paws leaping out the frame, black and white blur against larger blurs.  But then I got this picture:

 LP and I have become close friends this summer, maybe closer than we have been for the eleven years we've known each other.  He's with me pretty much all the time and it's hard not to drop everything and cuddle, scratch, or wrestle with him. Dogs are pretty much the best thing in the world--along with husbands and gardens and family and friends and good food--and LP is easily in the top 2%.

I also got this picture, which I had to share.  It's just his butt, but the way the sun is lighting it up. . . it hardly looks real.  Am I wrong?

Seriously. It's lit like an aerial shot of the Swiss Alps.

Fancy Party Notes

So, Dan and I braved Chicago Magazine's Best of Chicago 2014 party at the Chop Shop in Wicker Park. I figured it would either be my worst nightmare (because I get skittish in crowds of strangers) or loads of fun.  Turns out, it was both.

 

In the circles we run in, I think Dan and I are cool-ish.  He's a great musician with a voice like an angel and can code stuff. I am creative and can make just about anything with my hands to cuddle on or to eat with joy. We're both nice and smart and decent in most conversations. People like knowing us.

But in a crowd of gorgeous gastropub hotties, swinging socialites, and gingham summer suit dandies. . . we don't exactly stand out or attract interest. So, we were, as a couple, an island.  The good news is that I love our island and Dan is really cute and funny and we were a little fun-having rock in the stream of fancy fancy fancies.

The open bar and the free eats didn't hurt either.

Three stand-outs from the evening were--surprise, surprise--food-related: 

1. We kept seeing another couple that looked similar to us, wandering around together looking sweet and nice and a bit out of place.  We vowed to say Hi to them at some point and finally cornered them on a couch in the "Emirates Airlines VIP Lounge" (seriously?  If you know me, just from the name of that room, you know how out of place I was. . . ).  He was there representing Little Goat Diner--a diner we will now go to because the couple was so nice to us (Ryan and Georgia?) and so earnest about how great the place is.

But the whole time we were talking to these sweet sweet young people, an Emirates airlines commercial was looped on a giant screen behind their heads--a woman taking a shower in-flight, people dripping in money eating gourmet meals and mingling at the free standing bar in the center of the plane.  And at the terminus of the flight in Dubai? Attending polo matches.  Um. . . totally surreal.

2. Honey-glazed donuts from Endgrain.  Holy crap. Those donuts were a life-changing experience. I have a huge chip on my shoulder about donuts--always whining that the best donuts in the world are made by Busken's in Cincinnati and isn't it shameful that Chicago, as big as it is, can't make a donut at least as good as the donuts from my hometown. Well Endgrain, dear sweet Endgrain, has stepped up with the most ridiculously unbearadelicious donut I've ever eaten.

Honey glazed, but then in the center is this thin layer of an incredibly light slightly sour cream--a bit like cheese cake--and it's texture matches so perfectly with the texture of the donut that at first bite, I knew something magical was happening, but I couldn't tell there was a cream involved.  I HATE filled donuts.  Hate them. With a white hot blinding passion of hate.  But these were heaven.



Dearest Endgrain, we will be visiting you.  But we will call ahead to make sure my new donut boyfriend is in stock before we come. (in the picture above, I think my beau is the blurry one in the background. . . )

3. The Chop Shop sliders?  What?  Shut up.  We'll be back to eat you, too, and to try out your charcuterie buddies.  You reminded us just the tiniest bit of a fancied up Olympic Provisions in Portland--high praise indeed. 



So, all in all, a successful evening was had.  And we were home by 9:08 PM and asleep by 9:30. Sexy. sexy. sexy.

Dan will always be on my Best of Chicago list.

fivetrees additions

New softies making their way to the fivetrees etsy shop this weekend and probably into next week.  I'm working on a new project--a simple sweet project to be revealed soon--but in the meantime, I need to get completed work into the shop.

Yesterday, I did a little photoshoot out in the garden. The air is so crisp and clear and downright autumnal this summer (good and bad. . . like summer never even happened), that it has been really nice to take photos outdoors.

So, the weather cooperated, but my helper kept sneaking into the photos:

He sneaks in all nonchalant, slowly filling the viewfinder. He doesn't make eye contact and makes it all look like it's not intentional.  And when I laugh and tell him to get out, he looks at me with surprise as if to say, "Oh, sorry, I didn't see you there!"

Oh, L.P., you're simultaneously the best and the worst.

What a Difference a Month Makes

This year has been a funny year for gardening. The winter was brutal and so some perennials died back a bit. We also had a super cool spring and so we got started a bit late on planting the veg.

Just a bit over a month ago, this is what our newly planted vegetable garden looked like:
 

And as of a few days ago, after a serious weeding, it looked like this:

There are teeny tomatoes on all of the tomato plants.  Tiny cucumbers are growing. I have already made one small lunch batch of pesto from backyard basil and have used dill in a salad made with farmer's market potatoes.  It's so great to be able to walk out to the backyard at dinner time to "shop" for ingredients we need.

Gardening is like magic.  I mean, it's hard work, I guess.  But after such a miserable winter, it's hard to believe that all of this green and growing and bounty will return.  And that it grows like weeds on top of that?  It makes me feel lucky and it makes me feel proud that we have been working this ground for seven years now, creating a bed that supports all of this life and food production.

As proof of that. . . as I was weeding the whole garden on Sunday, I thought, "Why don't we use gardening cloth to keep these weeds down?"  But once I was done weeding and could see the darkness and loamy-ness of the soil, I thought, "We worked hard to make that soil so rich and pretty.  I'm not covering that up."  I am a silly and vain gardener as it turns out.

Plus, new for 2014! Dan has made me three trellises for container gardening: 

 

Our veg plot is so small, that it's hard to give up space to large trailing plants like watermelon or winter squash.  So, this year, I'm growing those and summer squash in containers with the hopes of growing them vertically and training a number of them up on to the trellises.  It's just a side bonus that they will also cover up our boring gray garage for a few months.

I definitely got a late start on these, but squash grow so quickly that I'm not worried.  And those containers are jam-packed with organic potting soil and manure.  By next month, I expect them to all be two to three feet up the trellises. And I have dreams of late summer watermelon and winter squash dotting the trellis in tiny support hammocks.

Fingers crossed.

At Last

Winter has been tough in most of the country this year. (Can I get an Amen?)  Frigid. Snow covered. And so ridiculously long.  I mind winter less as I get older, but I have hated this year's.  It snowed just a few days ago.  After a few sixty and seventy degree days--flowers blooming in the yard, me out on the town not sausaged into a million layers for the the first time in going on seven months--enough big fat wet snow fell that it stuck on the ground for a whole day.  In April.

Unconscionable.

I have asked strangers on elevators (in a town where you don't talk to strangers very often), "Why does the outside hate us?"  I was on a walk in the cold with the dog two days ago and a bundled up old guy on a bike yelled as he rode past us, "Do you know when the hell it plans to warm up?"

I'm just saying, people are angry and tired and fed up.

But I think things are finally about to change and I have collected the proof from my very own yard (and the neighbor's):

The very start of lilac blooms.  I love the tight concord grapeyness of their beginnings.

Asiatic lilies creeping out.  Right from the start they're so themselves--pointy and brash.

Is there anything more promising up north than the first prehistoric looking unfolding of Rhubarb leaves?

A hosta spear troop.

Bird's nest on our rolled up awning. (And, um, I think we need to scrub all of that down when the birdie is done.  Dirty, dirty.)

Crocuses!

Neighbor's tree. (totally jealous.)

Spirea leaf starts.

Ruth Ozeki and the Little Wave People

Just recently, I read Ruth Ozeki's A Tale for the Time Being, and loved it. It's sad overall, but is nevertheless filled with so many moments of such honesty and hope, that when I finished the book, I wasn't certain if I should be sad or happy (but happy definitely on the more subtle content end of the spectrum).  It's the feeling I hope to have, maybe, at the end of things?  A mix of important feelings neither good nor bad winning out--as complicated as saying good bye must be and feel.

Anyhoo, early on in the novel, the main character Nao Yasutani (a 16 year old girl set on committing suicide after filling her journal and telling the story of her Grandmother's life as a Buddhist nun) explains the meaning of "ronin".  Long ago, a ronin was a samurai whose master had died, and was then condemned (or freed?) to be a wandering sword for hire.  In modern day, it essentially means a loser kid who hasn't found a path and seems unlikely to.  Nao is a ronin.

But then she further breaks down the etymology of ronin in this way:

The way you write ronin is with the character for wave and the character for person, which is pretty much how I feel, like a little wave person, floating around on the stormy sea of life.

Wow.  I read that teensy paragraph and felt it down to my toes and had to take a break from the book for a day.  That's precisely how I feel right now. . . like a little wave person, floating around on the stormy sea of life.

I'm moments from not having my job of ten years any more.  I resigned, though it hardly felt like my choice.  Not that that's important.  What's important is that I am getting out and roaming free for a bit.  I am lucky to have a husband and a family that supports this.  And this is the right move for right now. But it nevertheless makes me feel small, maybe even wee.  And uncertain. . . deeply uncertain. It's scary and lovely and heartbreaking.

In the end, I bet it will be okay.

Later in Ozeki's novel, Nao's grandmother takes her to sea and has her go out and "fight the waves".  Nao thinks it's a bit silly, but does it anyway.  When she returns, tired, to her grandmother, this conversation happens:

"Maketa," I said, throwing myself down in the sand. "I lost. The ocean won."
She smiled. "Was it a good feeling?"
"Mm," I said.
"That's good," she said. "Have another rice ball?"

As simple as that.  When sad or lost, sometimes the cure is to recognize that there are forces so much larger than you that you couldn't possibly win against them.  It's important, I think, to try, but then when you lose, to enjoy the exhaustion of a fight well battled and acceptance of not being a winner without also being a loser.  Important stuff.

Read the book.  I think you'll like it.

On not taking yourself too seriously

My friends have super mixed opinions of Jimmy Fallon.  They either seem to like him a lot or don't think he's funny at all.  I wasn't a huge fan of his on SNL, because he could never keep from breaking during skits.  Before he joined the cast, the moments that the cast or guests broke were few and far between, and so when it happened it felt like a special gift, like you were seeing some rare joyous moment when even professionals couldn't keep it together.  Jimmy Fallon made that not a rarity.  It became a weekly occurrence, and I didn't like it.

But now that I'm older and Jimmy Fallon has moved on to Late Night and now the Tonight Show, I'm a huge fan.  I think the talk shows are a better fit for him--but mostly because it seems like those outlets allow him to be fully him.  He's a joyous dude and maybe he always broke on SNL because he's so filled with laughter.  Isn't that a nice thought?  I don't know him, obviously, but I adore his gleeful child-like approach to humor and entertainment.  It's as if his whole professional career is about not taking himself too seriously and convincing all of his guests to do the same.

He's a breath of fresh air.

And so here's his newest gift:




And how convenient for me that the song he picked for this week's Dressing Room Recording Session is Idina Menzel singing Oscar-winning Song "Let it Go"?

I'm trying to take myself less seriously.  I'm trying to take just about everything less seriously--except for loving people.  Opinions outside of myself shouldn't matter.  And my inner opinions should be gentler and more compassionate.

Let it go, people.  Let it go.

Late to the Fair

So, I think everyone has already seen Benjamin Ames and his teeny 4 y.o. singing "Tonight You Belong to Me".  Apparently it was on the news and the video went "viral."  But I saw it for the first time today, and so I'm posting it.  Maybe not for you.  Maybe just for me so that I know it will be safe and sound in my archive, and I will be able to re-find it a year or two from now when I need a cheer up or a little free parenting advice.  It's lovely.



You might have just noticed that I snuck in the possibility of needing a little free parenting advice.  Yah, I'm late to the fair with Benjamin Ames. . . but also with being a mom to some wee person.  No longer.  D and I have started the process to adopt. So, in truth, motherhood will take a little bit longer. This isn't a swift process.  But we're so excited to have started on the journey.

I can't imagine that I will talk about the actual process here a lot.  In large part because it won't just be mine and D's journey.  It will be the journey of the generous birth family who walks the line with us.  And their story isn't my story to tell.  We will have a small private life together that would be wrong to reveal.

But I won't likely be able to keep my hope and joy and love and excitement to myself.  And so this video.  Mr. Ames.  Thank you for showing a sweet way of taking the anxiety out of something scary.  Fireworks--literally things that go bump in the night--get the smack down from singing with Dad.  This will be a solution in our house, and I can't wait.

My Favorite Movie of the Oscar Picks

I should be honest and say upfront that I have not seen all of the Oscar nominated movies.  Okay, I've only seen two of the Best Picture nominees: her and American Hustle.  But I've seen a smattering of other movies that have nods in other categories: Cutie and the Boxer (documentary), 20 Feet from Stardom (documentary), August Osage County (acting nods), The Croods, Despicable Me 2, a number of others.  I will see Captain Phillips and Inside Llewyn Davis and likely Frozen before the awards come around.  But I get excited because my husband gets excited because his twin (who was a film major and loves film film film) gets excited and there's lots of talk about who should win and why.

I should also be honest and say I don't really care who wins.  Giant celebratory awards ceremonies for honoring millionaires for being the best at a job that they adore. . . Nowadays?  Seems a little tone deaf.  But film is still good and moving and important.  And so my pick for Best Picture, simply because it was my favorite film of the year, hands down, is Spike Jonze's her.

Looking at reviews online, it seems like people either love or hate this movie, but I just thought it was beautiful.  When I was a kid, loads of movies about aliens were positive--Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T., Starman--and writers and directors made space for a vision of alien life being gentle and curious.  That's incredibly rare now. Even Spielberg's aliens are angry and violent now, and it makes me a little sad.  It feels like a lack in our vision, and likely a lack of wonder or generosity or hope. Artificial Intelligence--the other Sci-Fi bogey man--has rarely ever been anything other than terrifying.  Machines become smarter than us, and they immediately set to work enslaving or killing the entire human population.

But not so in "her".  A.I. starts as a personalized OS system that begins its life and learning getting to know individual people, and as a result, it loves us.  It's such a hopeful take and I hope more likely than The Matrix or Terminator or 2001: A Space Odyssey or even the ridiculously morose A.I.

Beyond the Sci-Fi genre thoughts, her is also, primarily a story about love.  How do we love?  What constitutes love?  Does romantic love happen in your mind or does it have to also be physical? How do we learn that we are loved or even lovable?  What constitutes a human connection and has that been changed by the influx of technology into our personal lives?

It's a pretty thought provoking movie, with the bonus of also being uplifting as well.  In 2014, my year of pursuing love and quiet joy, her was undoubtedly a quiet joy.



Also, I would totally kick ass at Twombly's day job.