skies ripped open by the sun, daylight comes but not soon enough

It's 12:37am and I should almost certainly be in bed, but my schedule is weirdly fucked up and I had to work a couple of hours tonight. When I got up this morning I took care of a bunch of tings around the house rather than writing, and then I slogged pretty much straight from nine to four. I did some of that slogging outside on my patio, which was delightful - there is probably still smoke in the air, but it's so much better than it was that I ignored it.

Also this morning, a couple of guys came over to give me a quote on what it would take to lay some pipe (heh). More specifically, I'm going to put a fire pit in the backyard, and they were quoting what it would take to make the fire pit natural gas instead of propane. It sounded dicey at first, but then they took a look at my basement and said it would be super easy to connect in the basement and run a pipe + a shutoff out through the east wall of the basement (rather than the north wall, where my gas grill is, which is way too far away). They also said Denver permitting is pretty fast, so that's good to know. I still need to figure out the concrete plan outside (i.e. whether/how they'll cut the concrete - but luckily there are seams that they can maybe cut along, so idk), but a gas fire pit would make me super happy, so I think I'll make it happen.

Sometime around four, I paused the endless slog to talk to Tomas, whom I hadn't talked to in ages. We exchanged notes on our boredom and crankiness at the end of the world, which is pretty much all conversations right now. Then I unfortunately needed to do a bit more work, but I did it while waiting for fancy pasta from Bar Dough - I was going to grill tonight, but there was a sudden downpour, so fancy pasta was the way to go.

Then I watched the RNC, which was a bit bizarre because almost all the speeches were pretaped (but made to appear live) and so didn't reference anything about hurricanes or Kenosha or anything else of a more urgent matter. And then I took care of some laundry, took out my contacts, and slogged a couple of hours.

But now I've survived another day, which is always a feat in this day and age, so it's time for bed. Goodnight!

never mind, these are horrid times

I had a ridiculously busy day, especially considering that today was technically a no-meeting-day. Part of it was self-inflicted - I got up and wrote a few pages before work, and so I didn't get to my day job desk until 9:30. Then I slogged v. much nonstop until 1:30 (well, I guess I stopped for lunch), including three meetings (thanks, no-meeting-day!).

At that point, I had to vacate my house - I had an appointment with my eye doctor, which means I had to drive to Boulder for the first time since April (!). My eye doctor was conveniently located five minutes from my office, which is no longer convenient in the current environment. But the appointment was good, even if masks make you fog up the optometry equipment. And then I took the opportunity to go to Target in the late afternoon, trying to avoid the swarms of people on the weekends - my buying habits have changed, and so I felt like I needed to get laundry detergent, soap, cleaning supplies, etc., before any of it runs out. They were basically out of hand soap and mostly out of dish soap, but I was able to get most of the stuff on my list (and some impulse buying in the office/school section, + a container of disinfecting wipes that are the first ones I've seen since quarantine began).

Then I stopped at Home Depot to pick up something for [censored], and I got a couple of things for my garden + a cover for my grill for the winter. Then I came home, ate some leftover Indian food, and watched the RNC while prepping food - I made cobb salads for the next three days, stored in careful layers inside mason jars to keep them from getting soggy.

And then, I worked for the last two hours, which is sad but necessary (and not that onerous since I clearly skipped out for part of the afternoon). And now I must sleep - goodnight!

it's all heat in this day and age, i'll raid your grave, anything it takes to save the day

I was slightly less cranky today than I was yesterday, but it still wasn't perfect. I had an 8:30 meeting, so I didn't get up in time to write. However, I only had three hours of meetings today, which felt like a miracle. I would have gotten a lot done, but unfortunately I had to deal with some firedrills at work; I probably should be working right now, but I think my destiny is bed instead.

But I got to do some of my work outside, until it was too hot to be out there. I also took a walk for an afternoon break. I spent a couple of hours talking to [censored], who was [censored]. I ordered Indian food instead of eating leftovers, and I'm pleased with my little rebellion. I also drank most of a bottle of wine while watching a couple of hours of the RNC - I have always watched both conventions and I have no intention of stopping now, but I have a lot of thoughts and feelings that are best drowned in a bottle of wine and left for dead.

And now I think I might try to go to bed early and try to reset myself for getting something done tomorrow morning. Goodnight!

i'm a little bit rusty and i think my head is caving in

Happy Sunday and happy day one million in quarantine. I am sure that I will be back in it to win it on my #quarantinechef antics since I generally enjoy cooking...but right now, I want to be writing a book, and so cooking is really not what I should be spending my time on. I may need to reconfigure my cooking / eating so that I make more things that are fast instead of elaborate, even if that knocks a few points off the flavor scale.

But really, I was just a little cranky all day. I woke up relatively early but doomscrolled on twitter before I got out of bed - I'd successfully stayed off twitter before noon for almost two weeks, which has been v. helpful, but today it didn't happen. Then I put on yoga pants and walked down to the farmer's market, which was the highlight of the day - I got some perfect tomatoes, and some squash and zucchini and lettuce, and that was all great.

Then I came home and did some more nothing before making lunch - I baked some bacon (for salads this week) and also cooked some bacon along with potatoes, onions, red pepper, and garlic to make a v. delicious hash. That will get me through a few days of meals. Then I had to clean up the kitchen, and I ended up cleaning out my fridge - necessary, but not entertaining. All of this is compounded by the fact that my arm still really hurts from falling on my face yesterday (well, I didn't fall on my face, but only because my arm broke my fall) and so I can't lift my arm above my head and have to be careful while doing basic tasks. Grr.

Eventually I called my parents, who were in good form. I also prepped dinner - I grilled some chicken for upcoming salads, grilled some breakfast sausage because it needed used and I figured I could throw it on the grill, and also grilled a flank steak to go with the tomatoes and burrata that I'd already acquired. This whole mess was a bit hit or miss - I think I overcooked the chicken based on the bite I had, and the steak didn't turn out particularly well either. However, I'm blaming the steak on the meat itself - it was perfectly medium rare from a temperature and color standpoint, and I'm pretty sure I sliced it properly, so it was either the steak itself or the marinade wasn't a winner. But the breakfast sausage was tasty, and any the real star of the meal was the tomato and burrata salad, so whatever.

Then I cleaned up my kitchen again, and eventually I wrote for thirty minutes - it maybe saved the overall outcome of the day that I actually got a few hundred words on the page despite my crankiness. And then I had an impromptu family call with Aditya, John and Jess; it was arranged pretty late and so most people couldn't make it, but it was good to hang out with them and catch up on their local minima. Everything that was wrong before seems to be getting better, but of course it's now getting worse because of the omnipresent wildfires [the air quality in Berkeley is horrendous, the fires are still blazing everywhere, and they're about to get another round of intense lightning storms that will light things up again]. And I told them about the derecho, which has been dramatically underreported - and, as is my common refrain these days, makes it feel vaguely apocalyptic.

But family time is always a good time, so I'm glad we caught up (and I evangelized bug out bags to them, although I really need to create mine rather than spending my time evangelizing them to others). And now I need to go to bed - goodnight!

i needed to lose you to love me

Today marked an important milestone - I got my hair cut for the first time in a year. In fact, I just looked it up, and my last hair cut was on August 17. I'd tried a new salon then, was only marginally sold on it....and then went to Australia, Tahoe, Berlin, Gram's funeral, Thanksgiving, Christmas, LA/Oceanside, and Disney World. Granted, there were breaks in between, but I was still settling into my new house, dealing with work stuff, etc., and so I kept putting a hair cut off. And then quarantine happened. And so my hair was hitting the waistband of my jeans and had become impossible to dry in any reasonable amount of time, and it was all feeling just a bit too wild.

So I went to the Aveda salon on 32nd, and it was great. They only had 2-3 stylists there (in a salon with 12 chairs), and everyone wore masks and they took my temperature when I walked in, so it felt about as safe as it could. And my hair now feels bizarrely short, even though it's still below my shoulder blades. I never thought I would be this excited to get a hair cut, but desperate times.

Amusingly (not amusingly), I also discovered that I'm now incapable of walking in heels. I wore some platform sandals for like the second time since March, and while I was walking to the salon I completely ate it on the sidewalk - like, full on sprawl on the ground, skinned my elbow (it's hard to skin an elbow on a sidewalk), skinned a finger, and maybe pulled something in my left arm since I can't lift it above my head. So, my natural grace hasn't improved in quarantine, and my inability to wear shoes may become a problem in the after-times....but those times aren't here yet, so I'll go back to wearing slippers and sneakers and hope for the best.

Then I came home, threw some laundry in, and went back out to pick up lunch at Garbanzo's (I'm in a bit of a cooking strike, probably because it's been 95+ for weeks and everything is burning). I spent several hours this afternoon doing a variety of tings around the house. Then I talked to Joann and Jen (aka the friendship renewal group) - the fire situation in California sounds awful, so hopefully everyone stays safe.

After that, I packed up my cooler full of magic and went over to hang out with Katie and James in their back yard. I took stuff for Aperol spritzes, as well as a bunch of cheese and salami and snacks, and we had a delightful late afternoon the stretched on until ten p.m. They made burgers and sweet corn, and it was about as happy as it could be considering that our conversation kept turning to a variety of apocalyptic scenarios.

And now, I need to sleep - goodnight!

hey there delilah

 I'm super tired but in a v. good mood, so hopefully sleep will balance out the tiredness without altering my general emotional state. I got up this morning and unfortunately had to start slogging almost immediately, and then I worked until six (v. unusual for a Friday).

So, that was all a long day, but as soon as I was done, I preheated my grill and made bratwurst to go with my leftover veg and halloumi salad. The brats were perfectly cooked, if I do say so myself, but I didn't totally love the seasoning mix - I'm on the hunt for the best brats in Colorado, so I'm going to have to keep trying. While I was eating, I got an unexpected catch-up call from John and Jess, because they were playing 'Everything Zen' by the world's greatest band (Bush) and thought of me.

So we talked for nearly forty minutes, which was great for me and also possibly great for Ian because he conned Jess into more tv. Then I cleaned up my kitchen and talked to Katrina for a v. long time - it was her birthday last week (Happy birthday, Katrina!) and we had a lot to catch up on.

But now I'm falling asleep and I need to get up and be moderately productive tomorrow, so it's time to go focus on that. Goodnight!

crazy's my new best friend

I had a pretty lovely day, all in all - much better than I deserved, perhaps. I woke up this morning after slightly too little sleep (I stayed up an extra fifteen minutes last night texting with the friendship renewal crew, some of whom may have to evacuate from the wildfires that are spreading in the south bay (!)), and so I didn't get to write this morning (although I did journal for ten minutes). My meetings started at 8:30 and went straight through until 2, which was a bummer. But I ordered a spicy tuna poke bowl for lunch - I'm considering ordering lunch once a week while I'm working from home, since lunch by the end of the week is usually some weird mix of leftovers. Today's lunch was a success - even if a tuna poke bowl is, in some ways, not that dissimilar from the fact that I would have opened a can of tuna for lunch today. Of course, in almost all important ways, it's totally different (like, tuna that is high enough quality to eat raw is usually not what ends up in a can full of olive oil)...but regardless, lunch was tasty.

Then I slogged most of the afternoon, although I took a quick break to go to my favorite cheese shop down the street and grab some cheeses. I'd had a work videoconference with Alice (the other Alice that lives in Colorado, not the one who lives in London), and I discovered that she had just moved to Denver, and that her new roommate was a girl named Emily who worked with us both alllll the way back in 2008. So I invited them over for an impromptu happy hour, and it was wonderful - I hadn't seen Emily more than once or twice in the last twelve years, and so it was great to catch up with her. She just up and moved here from San Francisco....and apparently the housing market here is red hot, because Alice and Emily had trouble finding a place to rent and Alice's house in a different CO town went under contract in three days. Craziness.

So we had a great time hanging out and eating fancy cheese and drinking the prosecco that Alice brought. The prosecco was necessary because I had had to deal with a late afternoon work drama (nothing bad, just requiring some delicate work that I probably wasn't very delicate with)....and by the time Alice and Emily left, I didn't care anymore, which was nice. I cleaned up my house, put away dishes, watched some of the DNC, and read up on Twitter. And now, I think I'm going to actually try to go to bed early (yay) - goodnight!

jumping off your sinking ship instead of going down with it

I had another good day...maybe abnormally excessive heat and wildfires are good for me? I got up in time to write for a bit before work, which felt great. Then I sat in meetings pretty much straight through the day, but in one of them I got to tell some people about [censored]'s quarter trick and also eat bacon straight out of a ziploc bag, so it could be worse.

My last meeting of the day was unexpectedly canceled, so I snuck out (which is pretty easy to do when it's my house) and ran a couple of errands. I've been a fiend for the Nordstrom anniversary sale, and so I had a couple of returns to make + an order to pick up at the store, so I braved the Cherry Creek mall. The returns and pickups are practically contactless, so that was all easy. I also browsed the clothing section a bit and ended up buying a couple of things - the saleswoman who helped me said it's been awful for them (i.e. slow and no customers), although the people doing the online orders are slammed. So, since I felt bad for her and also like throwing money at my emotions, I now own a couple of sweaters that will not get worn until Denver stops setting records for 90+-degree days. But I'm sure I'll be happy to have them when the snow returns in like three weeks.

Then I stopped at the pharmacy to pick up some photos I'd ordered, and then I came home, tidied up some tings, and ate dinner (leftover grilled salad and chicken burger + some potato salad that Aunt B had sent home with me). Then I did my usual political season roundup of news (fox, abc, the hill, politico, etc) and came across this Politico interview with a major Republican operative who pretty much sums up my exact viewpoint on why and how conservativism has been replaced with Trumpism, despite little ideological connective tissue between standard conservative values (free trade, low deficits, serving as a voice of democracy around the world and standing in opposition to dictators, upholding the constitution for all) and how the current administration is turning all those conservative values on their head. And then I was sad.

But now I'm going to stop being sad and go to bed - goodnight!

my fortune told me i'm on the wrong road

I had a lovely day, and I suppose I should consider going to bed soon but I don't wanna. My day started earlier than I would have liked - I had an 8:30am meeting, but I was able to make tea and meditate before it, so it could be worse. Then I slogged all day, with a quick break for lunch (that leftover grilled vegetable and halloumi salad was even better today; the chicken burger was still dry, but c'est la vie). I also had a meeting with the big boss, which is always fun, and it left me in a good mood.

Then I transitioned immediately into socializing - Caroline came over, and we spent a lovely couple of hours drink aperol spritzes on my patio. She brought some cheese (including a perfect blue cheese that is made in her village in France), and then we ordered salads for dinner, and it was pretty great. My patio is pretty much the best thing that has happened to me this year, and I'm super grateful that I have it - hopefully the addition of a firepit will make it even more wonderful and perhaps carry me through the quarantine times ahead.

Then Caroline left, and I did a bit of cleanup before watching the end of tonight's DNC coverage so that I could send taunting texts to Terry about her anchor's choice in suits. And then, I perhaps should have worked, but instead I watched two episodes of Padma Lakshmi's TASTE THE NATION (on the Hulu account that I'm liberating from [censored]). I'm calling this research for the book I'm working on, so I guess it counts as productivity? But really it was just delightful - the first episode was about Mexican food in El Paso and the second was about Indian food in New York, and it made me hungry, desperate to travel, and so so eager to keep cooking my way through the months ahead.

And now, I suppose I should consider sleep - goodnight!

it’s gonna be another weird month i guess according to my horoscope

Today involved far too much slogging for my liking. That's not entirely fair; part of why it felt like too much was because I didn't write this morning (although I did meditate). I also spent some quality time cooking tonight, which could have perhaps been devoted to writing or other endeavors. But all in all, it was a good day. Like I said, I meditated this morning; I also watered flowers in my backyard and generally relaxed a bit before hitting the day.

Then I slogged all day; I didn't have a ton of meetings, but I had a lot of actual work to do, and luckily I had some time in which to do it. I ate some leftover bacon frittata for lunch (it's almost even better the next day), and I thought I might be done by 5 or 5:30, but instead I worked until after six. At that point, I was supremely glad that I'd ordered groceries in the middle of the day, although supremely hungry and not really wanting to cook them.

But I persevered, and I'm really glad I did. I tried a new recipe for a grilled vegetable salad, and it was the absolute bomb. The original recipe called for eggplant, zucchini, radicchio, and halloumi; I didn't have eggplant, so I substituted summer squash and a yellow bell pepper, and it turned out great. I don't know how it would be without the radicchio, which adds some bitterness. It would also require a bit more salt, perhaps, if you did it without the halloumi - halloumi is this brined cheese that is really salty (and squeaky, like cheese curds), which I ate a lot of when I was staying in London a lifetime ago. It has a high melting point, so it can be grilled right on the grill, and so it's perfect with the grilled vegetables. I grilled it all for 3min (radicchio) to 10min (everything else), chopped it up, tossed it with some lemon juice / olive oil / honey, and it was absolutely excellent.

The chicken burger I made to go with it was less excellent - it tasted good, but it was a little dry, so I had to slather it in tzatziki to make it better. But that salad with a steak would have been the perfect summer meal. Needless to say, I'm glad I got my grill even if it is 95 degrees out, the air is still full of smoke and dumping ash on my patio furniture, and winter is coming.

Speaking of winter coming, I also got some quotes for a fire pit and I talked to one of the companies today; hopefully we can move forward so that I can extend the functionality of my backyard. And I spent the rest of the night watching the DNC (mostly so I could tell Terrence that she needs to intervene with her network anchor's hair gel situation), messing around online, trying on things that are trickling in from my aggressive pillaging of the Nordstrom anniversary sale, etc.

And now I really need to sleep - goodnight!

i brought a lemon to a knife fight

I felt like doing nothing today, but I did slightly less nothing than yesterday, so I think I'll call it a win. I woke up slightly late due to the fact that I didn't get home until after midnight last night, and I decided to skip my usual Sunday morning walk to the farmer's market because it's still smoky outside. But I did journal and do a load of laundry this morning, so I'll take it.

Then I showered and drove down to Castle Rock, where Aunt Becky made me a v. tasty cobb salad for lunch. I love cobb salads and am often too lazy to cook/chop everything necessary for them, so this was great. I hung out with her for a couple of hours and only walked out with a container of potato salad, a bag of other random stuff, and three cookbooks, so as these things go I would call it a success!

Then I drove back to Denver; when I got here, I called my parents and ended up talking for over an hour and a half. While we were talking, I baked a package of bacon, which I'm v. much looking forward to eating. When we were off the phone, I used part of that bacon to make a frittata with onion, potatoes (well, frozen hash browns), bacon, and cheese - and it was pretty fucking delicious if I do say so myself.

I ate that frittata (and drank an aperol spritz) while having a long overdue catch-up with Drewbaby - he and [censored] had apparently talked for quite awhile this afternoon, and I was feeling jealous, so we had a chat. It was great to hear from him, even though I can't quite believe that I am now the kind of person who has a relative in Fargo.

Then I took care of some tings around the house, made my bed with fresh sheets, etc. And now I think I'll contemplate crawling into those fresh sheets and going to bed - goodnight!

the songs on the radio are okay, but my taste in music is your face

I'm already falling asleep so I'll keep this brief. Today could have sunk into a black pit kind of day - but not for any good reason other than I was feeling supremely lazy, and so really didn't get much accomplished. However, I did get my new chaise lounge delivered - it's for what should be a dining area / nook in my kitchen, and is now a lounge and a bar cabinet. I'm siting on it right now and it's awesome - I'm looking forward to journaling here with my morning coffee in the future.

I also talked to [censored], and at some point I went to the grocery store to pick up some tings. I made some quinoa tabbouleh this afternoon, which turned out delightfully. And then in the evening I went to Katie's house - Hannah, our friend from high school (and my distant cousin), is in town briefly, and so Katie hosted a backyard gathering. Hannah was traveling with a former coworker, who probably got entirely sick of hearing our gossip from high school. But it was a delightful evening - I contributed the quinoa + a cooler with ingredients for aperol spritzes, and Katie and James made some delish veggie and chicken kebabs, and it was all great.

But now, since I've already fallen asleep once, I should go to bed - goodnight!

she grew up tall and she grew up right

Today was beautiful, despite the smoke from a massive wildfire up in the mountains that added an even-more-apocalyptic cast to the current apocalypse. I had to wake up earlier than I preferred since I had a plumber coming at eight to fix my bathtub - he actually showed up at 7:45 and was done in less than 20min, so that was efficient and I would def hire him again.

So, since I was showered and dressed at that point, I did about an hour of work. Then I did a quick writing date with Veronica and got a couple of pages in 30ish minutes of writing, which was great. And then I slogged straight from ten to six, and I got a lot done, so I guess the slog was worth it.

I stopped typing mid email when Katie showed up - she came bearing bottles of cocktails, and we ordered sushi and sat on my patio for four hours to belatedly celebrate her birthday and catch up on life. It was a lovely, hilarious evening despite the smoke and the state of the world, and I enjoyed it immensely.

And now I must sleep - goodnight!

kiss you too hard and follow you west

I had a pretty good day, all things considered. I got up in time to make tea and write before work, so anything that came after that was going to be a bonus regardless. Then I slogged all day, with a small break to reheat some leftover enchiladas, which I ate outside on my back patio while pretending that my break was longer than it was.

But I ended at 4:30, which wasn't exactly onerous, so that I could talk to Heather (aka dear respected madam). We had a long chat about a wide variety of topics and it was delightful to see her on my screen. Then I did some stuff around the house, heated up some leftover lemon chicken and potatoes, and ate those while answering texts from people who were texting me. Then I was pretty lazy the rest of the night - I should have worked, most likely, but instead I basically did nothing.

And now I'm going to go to bed so that I can repeat at least some of these feats tomorrow - goodnight!

i want to know when i can go back and get drunk with my friends

I had a great day, but it started badly - I woke up at 2:30am with one of those acid stomachaches that used to plague me, and it made me feel a little vomity. So I grabbed a Sprite from the fridge and sipped it while sitting up in bed, which was not how I had intended to spend an hour of my evening. Between that and the fact that I had an 8:30am meeting, I didn't have time to write this morning, but I at least was able to go back to sleep and not feel totally like death today.

So, today was a v. meeting heavy day - I basically was in meetings straight from 8:30 to 5, although I think I had 30min free somewhere in there. One of my meetings was slightly illicit, since Sarah-Frances came over to meet in my backyard (her idea, not mine, and mostly because she'd left her sunglasses here last week) - but it was nice to talk about work face to face (albeit eight feet apart) for the first time in months, and also nice to be outside instead of chained to my desk.

When the meetings were finally over, I played with my new grill - I made the fajitas I had planned to make last night, and they turned out super well. The marinade on the chicken was perfect for keeping it juicy despite grilling, and the peppers turned out well (although I want to get a bit more char on them in the future). I also tried a new recipe for Spanish rice and it was delish as well. So, the grill seems to work like a charm, and it was nice that I basically had nothing to clean in the kitchen (other than the rice pan) - so I predict more grill experimentation in my future.

Then I took a quick walk, came home, tried to write, but mostly procrastinated because I'm too tired to focus. So I think it's time for bed - goodnight!

little by little we meet in the middle

I need to go to bed immediately, but today was a great day. I got up in time to make tea, meditate, and write before work; the writing came easy and I got a thousand words, which I will v. happily take. Then I slogged all day. I was all geared up to take a break and make fajitas on my new grill, and I'd even marinated the chicken....but then the wind picked up and it looked like it might storm. The risk seemed low (low enough that I walked to pick something up instead), but not so low that I felt comfortable pulling my grill out into the wind tunnel that forms between my front and back gates.

But I'd had my heart set on Mexican-ish food, so when I was done working a little after six, I ordered takeout chips and guac and enchiladas from El Camino. I ended up mostly just eating the guac, since I hadn't had copious amounts of guacamole in forever; I ate one of the three enchiladas, so now I have something easy for lunch tomorrow. So I sat on my patio and ate chips and guac and generally enjoyed life. Then I did a tiny bit more day job work and messed around the rest of the evening.

And now I must sleep - goodnight!

kick my shoes off and run

No blog tonight - I had a lovely first day back in the office (and by office I mean my dining room), and I had time to make salad for lunch + chicken and roasted potatoes for dinner. But I'm trying to go to bed earlier - I actually got up and wrote almost a thousand words before work, and I'm not sure I can repeat that feat every day this week, but earlier bedtimes make that feat slightly more likely.

And so even though it's only 10:40pm, I'm going to log off and go to bed. But lastly and not leastly, happiest of happy birthdays to Katie, who is almost exactly a month older than I am. Goodnight!

and i'm backsliding into this just one more time

Today was my last day of vacation - which meant that the usual Sunday Scaries were approximately four weeks of Sunday Scaries, simmered and reduced and enriched into a super-powerful version of my usual Sunday afternoon malaise. It wasn't really quite as bad as I made it sound, and I pulled myself out of it in the end. But I had such a good break, and while there are some things I'm excited about when it comes to going back to work ('back' being figurative), I'm not quite ready to end my delightful summer slacking.

However, all vacations end. I spent today trying to prep for it, but I didn't sleep well last night, so I was a bit low-energy all day. I got up and had some iced coffee and made some lists, etc., and then walked down to the farmer's market to pick up some tings. Unfortunately by the time I got there it was 10:30 and I think it was already ninety degrees, so I very nearly overheated walking home - especially as I was overburdened by tings I bought at the farmer's market. This mostly involved too many veggies, most of which I may or may not get around to eating; one of the veg stalls usually offers a 'fill a bag for $15' deal, and then they threw in a second bag for free because it was so hot that they were trying to sell out so they could go home. So, I ended up with a second bag full of stuff that I didn't totally need (including three ears of corn, because why not). That meant that, after I got home and put cold water on my face and took off my pants, I had to redo my meal plan for the week to accommodate the changes wrought by my veggie surplus.

After that, I ate some lunch (leftover quinoa salad). Then I drove down to Cherry Creek to pick up a grill basket and a grill brush from Crate and Barrel - perhaps not the most economical place to get those items, but they offer curbside pickup and the basket looks awesome, so I'm v. excited to test it out. I was going to go to Whole Foods to supplement the farmer's market haul, but there was a line out the door, and as it was 100 degrees and we're in a pandemic, I skipped it.

Instead, I stopped at the cheese shop in my neighborhood and bought some burrata to go with the heirloom tomatoes I bought this morning. Then I came home, took care of some house tings, started to freak out about the Sunday Scaries, and instead forced myself to put together my new office. I'm moving my day job office to my dining room, thus preserving the whole upstairs of my house for me-time (and writing time). So I carried my ergonomic desk chair downstairs, gathered a bunch of pens and paper and other day job accoutrements, organized cords and chargers, etc. That made me feel weirdly better about the Sunday Scaries, and I feel pretty well set up for tomorrow, so that's all good.

Then I called my parents, who sounded like they were doing well. I also made dinner - pretty easy, since I just chopped up some tomatoes, added half the ball of burrata, and drizzled oil and balsamic over it. But I also made garlic bread to accompany it, which was not at all gourmet - I mashed up some butter with garlic salt, buttered both sides of some gluten free bread, and toasted it in a skillet like Texas toast. It's not a traditional accompaniment to burrata, but it was pretty delicious, so yay me.

Then I talked to [censored], since he was [censored] and had an hour left to go. And then I folded laundry, tidied some more, etc. And now I need to go to bed so I can write before work (and hopefully find the courage to overcome the first-day-in-a-month email inbox). Goodnight!

i just wanted to get back to where you are

Second to last day of freedom - but is it freedom if you don't leave your house? I'm going to say it is. I spent the whole day hanging out at home; I didn't write, but I did spend several hours taking care of v. necessary tasks in my backyard. My trees were shooting up suckers, and I'm in a doomed war with the tree of heaven that is coming up on the other side of my fence (but may, in fact, be on my property - I can't tell, as it's coming up between my fence and the neighbor's fence). So I cleaned up my backyard, cut down all suckers, trimmed some tree areas that were starting to grow into the path to my garage, and weeded my rocky areas.

Then I did some illicit cutting on the tree of heaven from my side of the fence; I can't get rid of the whole thing, but I did clean up what I could. It was quite gratifying, even if it will now send out runners to take over my whole yard (which is already happening), and even if the foliage really stinks when you cut it.

I also tested out my new grill - I am still missing a knob for it and I kind of doubt that Lowes will actually figure it out, but we'll see. However, it lit up immediately, and I did the suggested twenty-minute preburn; it appears that everything is working as intended, so I'm looking forward to experimenting with it.

I had to take semi-frequent breaks while doing this since it was approx 95 degrees, but I filled my entire compost cart and my backyard looks great. I want to plant my pansies tomorrow, but for today I was satisfied. Then I took a quick nap and a shower before joining a call with Jen, Joann, and Jane (the friendship renewal group). We talked for almost two and a half hours - they'd caught up a couple of times more recently, but since I was in Iowa and on vacation, I was six weeks behind on news. It was great to talk to them, and it made me nostalgic for when it was possible to renew our friendship in person.

Then I was pretty lazy the rest of the night - I did some planning and some journaling, then sat around and read twitter, and then attempted to plan out my meals for the week so that I know what to get at the farmer's market tomorrow. And now I need to go to bed - goodnight!

what kind of words would cut through the clutter of the whirlwind of these days?

Today was great, even if I did wake up too tired and mildly hungover. I drank a bunch of water and swapped my morning iced coffee for a coke zero, since carbonation is preferred in hangover land. Then I took a quick shower and had a quick writing date with Veronica - I was not feeling particularly in it to win it, and the words were molasses-y, but I plotted out the next scene and was happy with that. And, of course, I'm always happy to see Veronica, even if it did result in me reading up on the history of Roman Britain (which is most definitely research for her book and not mine).

After we were done, I swapped the sweats for a sundress and then threw some chicken in a pot to poach (note: I did not poach the chickens from my neighbors, although I'm tempted). Barbara came up from the Springs for a socially distanced afternoon, and so we sat on my back patio for over three delightful hours and discussed life, writing, more life, the world, how much coronavirus sucks, etc. We also had lunch - I made some quinoa tabbouleh yesterday for today's lunch, and it was pretty perfect (esp with chicken and tzatziki on top). And we moved around the patio as the sun shifted - after this summer I'm more tan than I think I've ever been (at least my arms; my legs still look like stunted trees in a blizzard).

There was a bit of an interruption in our lunch because I'd hired a guy to come and mount my TV, which I hadn't done because I didn't really want to mount my TV. But the previous owner had cut a hole through the wall for an electrical outlet behind where the TV should be mounted, which would always be visible if I didn't mount the TV, so I finally bit the bullet and did it. I think it's a little higher than I would have mounted it personally, but it was preferable to use the previous owner's mount rather than redoing everything. And now my wall looks nice and all the cords are hidden, so that's a good outcome.

sssanyway, it was great to see Barbara - it almost felt like a normal non-coronavirus afternoon, even if she arrived and departed with the ghost of a hug. I don't know what winter will feel like when socially distanced afternoons on the patio are no longer comfortable, but I'm trying not to get anxious before it actually happens (and then, I promise, I will be really fucking anxious).

After Barbara left, I tidied up the kitchen and then spent a couple of hours talking to Sara (a coworker who is mostly just a friend at this point). Then I ate supper (leftover chicken chile verde) and took a walk around the neighborhood while listening to a writing podcast. And then I sat on my couch and did absolutely nothing, which I suppose I will take.

And now I'm going to sign off and either journal, read, or watch TV - goodnight!

sing with me, sing for the year, sing for the laughter, sing for the tear

 It is 1:12am, which means my goal of smoothly transitioning back into work bedtimes is behind schedule. Today was v. lovely, though. I woke up this morning in time to write for a bit, which went decently well. Then I took a previously-scheduled hiatus to meet with someone from work - he's the person who I delegated most of my stuff to, and he's out next week when I come back, so we decided to sync up today just to make sure I'm aware of what's happening. Sounds like everything went decently smoothly, and so while I'm sure there are surprises lurking in my inbox, hopefully I shall survive them.

Then I had two house things scheduled - a plumber to check the leak in my bathtub (which I've ignored for months because it doesn't always drip if I turn the handle just right) + hook up my new gas grill, and someone to measure my master bedroom shades so I can replace them with something that is actually a shade instead of a thin piece of mesh. They were both surprisingly early - the plumber was an hour early (so I had to pause my work meeting), and the shade guy showed up before his two-hour slot. The plumber is coming back Monday to fix the tub, but he was able to hook up the gas grill v. v. quickly; the shade guy was quick and efficient, so hopefully I can figure that out in the next couple of weeks as well.

Since that was all over before noon, I had some unexpected time on my hands. So I ate lunch, then went to a local cheese shop and bought some v. delicious cheeses; I also stopped in at my liquor store and bought Fernet, which is the official drink of San Francisco. I don't like it, but I guess I was homesick. I also bought another half-bottle of champagne and some more Aperol for future Aperol spritzes, because why not. Then I came home, put tings away, and prepped some food for tomorrow.

I then spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning, tidying, throwing things away, etc. And then around 5:30, Sarah-Frances came over - we're coworkers, but we had a potential friendship before we became coworkers, so I feel like it's fair game. She came back from maternity leave exactly two days before I went on vacation, so we were overdue for a catch-up, and my patio is ideally situated for social distancing. We ate cheese, drank bourbon cocktails (with Fernet - the other reason I bought Fernet is because I remember she likes it, but she discovered it in Argentina instead of SF), ordered v. delicious Thai food, and drank wine with dinner. It was delightful to hang out, and she stayed until after dark, and it all almost, kind of, not quite felt normal.

After she left, I texted a photo of the Fernet bottle to the family and suggested doing shots, which turned into a zoom call to check in on each others' local minima. For a zoom call at 10pm MDT / 9pm PDT with 20min notice, turnout was steller; Adit and Priyanka joined (Adit for local minima reasons, Priyanka to talk to me about nap dresses), as did John and Jess (whose local minima was the worst of the night), Chandlord, Ritu Rani, and Ritu Rani's naked baby. We discussed a wide variety of topics over the course of two hours, including local minima, nap dresses, the British royal family, the San Francisco housing market, politics and truth and how screwed we all are, sandwiches, the ability of toddlers to button clothes, and a variety of other tings.

So, that was all v. restorative (or at least as restorative as a late-night zoom call can be). And now I really need to sleep - goodnight!

you could show a little grace, but maybe things just went a bit too far

I need to aim for bed earlier tonight....I go back to work on Monday, which means I need to start training myself for the apocalypse getting up earlier. Today was pretty decent, all in all - I journaled and wrote most of the morning, which was great. Then I made a BLT (technically a BLTA, since I added avocado like the former Californian that I am) and it was pretty much perfect - I tried baking the bacon instead of frying it, and it turned out so well (and so much less messily) that I may never go back to frying it. Also, BLTs are one thing that I've missed as a gluten-free person, but with the better-than-Udis sandwich bread I've found in Colorado, plus the fact that tomatoes and lettuce are in season, this BLT was particularly winning.

After that, I really just wanted to take a nap, but instead I went to the grocery store. Then I came home and put everything away, and then I went to a garden center to get some fertilizer and check out the plants. I'd intended to buy some more petunias, but they were out; instead I bought some pansies, but now I'm concerned that it's too hot for them. Still, it was a fun excursion, even if it's possible that I should either stop gardening or hire someone to do it for me since I have too many higher priorities than gardening and so will never have as nice a garden as I'd like to imagine in my head.

sssanyway. Then I came home and made chicken chile verde in my instant pot - I was in the mood for something different than what I've been making, and this delivered. It turned out perfectly - just a bit on the spicy side, excellent for leftovers and also excellent to throw in the freezer for a future rainy day. After that, I cleaned my kitchen, and then I should have done something productive - but I got sucked into the twitter vortex and have only just emerged now.

So, I'm going to sign off and try to read or journal or do anything but twitter before bed - goodnight!

for the lump that sits inside your throat

Today was slightly less magical - the writing was a bit molasses-y [that's the best word I've come up with today] this morning, which is always frustrating after several days of non-molasses-y writing. But I meditated and journaled before, so that's a plus. Then I trimmed my bangs (thus enabling myself to see better, which may help with the writing), showered, made a sandwich, and ate it outside. I also tried to do a bit of planning and failed; then I took a nap, which felt rather decadent and unnecessary.

The day could have easily descended into despair at that point, but I managed to rally. I was going to go to the garden center, but at the last minute I swerved and took a walk instead (unfortunately after I'd switched out of shorts and into jeans, and it was hot as balls out, so shorts would have been preferable). I listened to a writing podcast while I walked, which helped. Then I tidied up my kitchen, made an aperol spritz, and wrote for another 20-ish minutes - not an amazing feat, but it made me feel slightly better and more like making progress tomorrow.

Then I threw in the towel and talked to Terry and Lauren (aka Subz) for a long overdue catch-up. And then I ate some leftover steak and broccoli rabe, read a bit more of the book I'm reading, and then sat on the couch and ended up watching four episodes of 'Episodes'. I'd found it while doing some research this morning, since I feel like I need some flavor of tv production in my current story (don't ask), and it turns out that it's hilarious and I should have watched it when it came out nine years ago. Matt LeBlanc plays a version of himself, and the other two main actors are v British and v appalled by him, and somehow it works.

So, I quite enjoyed that. Then I did a bit of organizing some tasks for the rest of the week. And now I'm going to go to bed - goodnight!

take a picture you could never recreate

I had a nice day today, and I'm getting dangerously accustomed to not doing day job stuff....which will be interesting to navigate when I go 'back' a week from today. And by 'back' I mean 'here', but with my work laptop instead of my personal one. That reminds me that the top priority for the rest of the week is to set up my dining room as my work office - it's been really nice to use my writing office as a writing office again, but doing day job work from here means that I don't ever want to use my writing office on the weekends. Yes, two offices for one person is ridiculous....but coronavirus is ridiculous and we're living in strange times.

sssanyway. I got up this morning in time to make coffee and meditate (and journal for approx three minutes) before meeting up with Veronica for a morning writing date. It was good to have a reason to force myself to log in at an early-ish hour, and that time was super productive - we only talked for a few minutes, and I ended up writing almost six pages. Yay. Thus feeling smugly accomplished for the day, I took a quick nap, showered, had some lunch, and ran a couple of errands (coffee, wine, and groceries - the trifecta of necessities). Then I came home and spent a couple of hours attempting to organize my basement - it's not in bad shape and I could have just shoved stuff into a corner anyway, but I'm trying to make it an appealing place in which to work out since I'm going to be stuck in my house forever. I still need to haul up a bunch of trash and boxes, and then set up my workout space, but I definitely made progress.

Then I made a somewhat elaborate dinner (not really, but I tested a new recipe for broccoli rabe that took longer than expected, and made a ribeye + reheated a frozen twice baked potato to go along with it). And then I read on my back patio for a couple of hours, which was delightful, before folding laundry and doing other responsible adult human tasks. And now I'm going to go to bed - goodnight!

and sometimes, the light's no consolation

I was pretty lazy today, but I'm okay with it. I slept late since I have been staying up late, and I need to get a bit closer to a normal bedtime - so it's 10:20pm and I'm hoping to go to bed as soon as I type this (even though I'm tempted to stay up and read until two). Because I woke up late, I didn't make it to the farmer's market - instead, I showered, ate some strawberry galette for breakfast/lunch, took care of some tings, and then wrote for an hour or so.

Writing was really the only thing I'd told myself I had to do today, so in that sense it was a success. I also meditated at some point this afternoon. Then I spent several hours talking to family - one of my nieces called me, and then I called my parents, and then I talked to [censored]. At that point it was suddenly too late to make the elaborate meal that I had planned to prep, so I instead ordered a pizza and walked down the street to pick it up.

And now, I'm going to take myself to bed so that I can get up and cracking earlier tomorrow - goodnight!

on both sides a vow was broken

It's amazing what I can get done if I don't spend all day on Twitter. It's also amazing what I can get done when I'm not at the day job, although that's coming soon. But today was a good day - I woke up a little groggy since I stayed up so late reading last night, and since it's now 12:25am I'm probably not setting myself up for success tomorrow either. But I dragged myself out of bed, meditated, journaled, made some eggs with avocado and salsa, drank some iced coffee, and eventually wrote.

When I was done with that, I ate some leftovers from last night, and then I made a gluten-free strawberry galette - it's basically a free-form tart. The crust was actually surprisingly good and held together well - I've had disasters trying to make gluten free pie crust in the past, but this one was good enough that I want to keep experimenting. The galette came together pretty well and I have a second crust chilling in the fridge, so if I find some good-looking fruit at the farmer's market tomorrow, I may make another. There's no harm in living off pie when it's the end of the world, right?

While I was meditatively rolling out pie dough, I had a breakthrough on a potential plot point, so I wrote for another twenty minutes while the galette cooled. At some point, I also took a nap. Then I called Lowes to harass them about my grill - when they delivered it, one of the burner knobs was missing, and the guy said they'd bring it to me the next day, but that was clearly a lie. Luckily I found a helpful guy via phone, and they're supposedly mailing me a knob. That means I haven't gotten to play with my grill yet, which means I may need to use pliers or vise grips (or move knobs back and forth) if I want to test it out this week....we shall see.

Then I took a walk, and then I sat on my back patio and read for awhile. And then, I maybe should have wound down and gone to sleep early, but instead I watched three episodes of the second season of the Umbrella Academy, which just came out. I'm trying to savor, since there are only ten episodes, but I'm sure I'll glom them all in the next few days.

And now I need to sleep - goodnight!

this city's kind of evil and i need to find caffeine

For all that yesterday was bad, today was the exact opposite. I did a lot of good/fun/nourishing stuff today, and spent very little time on twitter, so it was pretty delightful. I got up and made coffee / meditated / journaled / made more coffee / cleaned some stuff out of my fridge so I could take out my trash, and then I sat down to write. I got almost a thousand words, which felt great... it's been a long time since I've felt good about writing, so it's too early to claim that I'm fully back in it, but early omens feel good.

Then I ate lunch outside (leftover salad from last night), and then I had to take care of an annoying errand - I had to pick up a FedEx package that I'd paid extra to have delivered at a specific time on Wednesday, and instead they'd held it at the delivery center on the other side of Denver. Annoying. But I didn't have to wait in line and I did it before rush hour, so I guess it could have been worse.

Then I cooked a bunch - I tested a recipe for a gluten free pie crust, and while it's too soon to tell because I didn't end up making the pie, the steps up to the point where it chills in the fridge look promising. Then I made supper - some lentil dish + some salmon in the oven, and it was delicious (and completely not something I ever would have eaten in Iowa). While I did all that I listened to a really good Dax Shepherd podcast with Angela Duckworth on grit and talent vs productivity - Duckworth has researched grit for a long time and I was actually on a panel at work about grit without having read her book, so it was v informative to hear her talk.

I ended the night by binging a book - I read BEACH READ in one sitting, and it was fantastic. So now I'm hungover from reading and don't want to sleep, but know I need to if I want to accomplish similar feats tomorrow. Goodnight!

i got that summertime summertime sadness

Today was okay, but not great; I started reading twitter too early, and it was too easy to doomscroll today. But I did do some excellent food-related stuff - mostly taking inventory of what's in my freezer so that I can cycle through some of it before it goes bad. I also read / reread some cookbooks to figure out what I want to make for the next few days - while I picked up a few things yesterday, it wasn't enough, and I can no longer survive on leftover takeout and granola bars.

So I thawed out some sweet potato hash and had hash and eggs for lunch (I did pick up eggs yesterday). Then I made up my grocery list and went to Whole Foods - while I want to support the smaller grocery store near Katie's house (which is where I'd stopped yesterday), they never have everything I need. But I was in and out of Whole Foods pretty fast, and now I have ingredients to try a bunch of new recipes, which is exciting.

Then I came home, put tings away, and ate the last bit of leftover Indian food at four because I was starving. I also talked to Terry for awhile - we were overdue for a catch-up, and it was great to hang out for a bit. After we hung up, I doomscrolled while texting with [censored] and Drewbaby, but eventually I rallied and made a late supper - a very simple, very tasty cannellini bean and tuna salad from Stanley Tucci's second cookbook (recipe on zee romance blog). It reminds me a lot of a similar salad that I used to eat at the cafe next to the Equinox in the Marina, but this one was substantially cheaper and twice as big. But I also ate it by myself in the silence of my house rather than people watching in the Marina, so who knows what was better in that equation.

sssanyway. I've got grand plans to write tomorrow, and perhaps make an attempt at a baked good, and perhaps also read a book and/or do some yard work, so I should probably go to sleep. Goodnight!

you clean up nice

I ventured out of my house today, which was v. unusual. I'm on the hunt for some furniture to make a cozy conversational nook in my kitchen (and by conversational nook I now mean reading nook, since there will be no conversations for the foreseeable future). I've also decided to bite the bullet and replace the shade in my bedroom, since it is more of a mockery of a shade than anything else. I think it is the type of shade designed for filtering light to prevent glare in the afternoon, not the type of shade that is conducive for sleeping any length of time past dawn.

So, I'd made appointments at a couple of stores down in Cherry Creek to take care of those items - stores are reopened, but mostly at limited capacity. Both Room and Board and the shade place I went to said that things have been crazy busy since reopening - clearly everyone is sitting at home and realizing exactly what they hate about their current house and everything they want to buy to make it better. As someone who always buys alcohol, housewares, and fancy groceries, I find myself resenting that other people are making those things scarce....but I'm glad that the stores are doing okay when so many others aren't.

sssanyway, my first stop was Room and Board. The design consultant I met with there was super helpful and fun - and I think we figured out a chaise, which was a different chaise than what I'd originally thought to order. It will look awesome with my bar cabinet and will also be a fun place to sit (both by myself while drinking coffee / journaling and with others when dinner parties are eventually possible again). So, after months of searching and dithering, it's good to finally make a decision.

Then I picked up a to-go salad from sweetgreen - there were several sweetgreen locations in the bay area by the time I left, but they just opened in Denver a couple of months ago. I ate the salad while sitting on a park bench, and it was tasty and delightful. Then I went to the mall to pick up something at Nordstrom and return something else. I hadn't been to the mall since March, and I probably wouldn't go back unless I was picking something up - but the setup for picking up is pretty seamless, so at least there's that.

Then I discussed window shades, although I didn't make any decisions. And then I came home briefly before running to Katie's to pick up my outdoor plants. After that, I grabbed a few groceries, came home, put tings away, heated up some leftover thai, and talked to Veronica. V was in good form and we had a lot to discuss, so that was great.

And now, after that recap (which missed the fact that I painted my toenails, but in other ways was pretty complete), it's time for bed - goodnight!

i tried going against my own soul's warning

I had a pretty great day, but I'm super tired and need to go to bed asap. I got up around seven and spent the morning alternating between doing some writing/meditation journaling vs. getting my house tidied up - my least favorite part of traveling (other than the possibility of getting the 'rona) is unpacking and putting things away, but I tried to tackle it as aggressively as possible.

I probably would have been more productive with the writing, or at least gone to the grocery store, if I hadn't gotten a grill delivery that took some time right in the middle of the day. The delivery was smooth but the grill is missing a knob, which they assured me they would drop off tomorrow - we'll see.

Then, a little after that, Katie came over and we had a delightful socially distanced dinner - we sat more than six feet apart, and we were generally quite careful about what we touched. She brought cocktails from Ash'kara, which were a delight; I ordered Indian food; and together we spent four hours going deep on all sorts of topics.

I could have kept drinking all night, but I have grand plans to write and run errands tomorrow, so that's the end of this post. Goodnight!

who are you when i'm not looking?

I'm back in Colorado, thus ending nearly a month in ye olde Iowa. Today was entirely boring and uneventful - I got a decent night's sleep in Kearney, and then I had a bit of day job work to do this morning, so I didn't get out of there until 9:30ish. I also had to stop for breakfast, since the breakfast buffet was closed due to the 'rona - so I had hash browns and sausage patties from McDonald's, which was enough of a grease bomb to fuel the drive west.

I had to stop a couple of times to get gas and use the bathroom, but I made it home sometime around two. And then I was pretty much useless the rest of the day - I got my car unloaded, did three loads of laundry, and took care of a handful of minor things around the house, but that was the extent of my ambition. And now it's only ten p.m., but it's eleven in Iowa and I am going to try going to sleep early so that I can get up and meditate/write tomorrow morning rather than allowing myself to descend completely into vacation sloth. Goodnight!

jumping off your sinking ship instead of going down with it

I'm in Nebraska, which is too boring to deserve a post. But I had a great start to the day - I slept in a bit, and then [censored] and I hung out for awhile before grabbing brunch at a Mexican restaurant in his downtown. Then I loaded up my car and we said our farewells...it would have been nice to stay another full day, but I'm also feeling the need to get home, so I decided to embark this afternoon.

After saying goodbye to [censored], the rest of the day was boring...I drove for 5.5hrs and got to Kearney before deciding that I was no longer interested in driving. So I checked into a hotel and then grabbed dinner from a restaurant across the parking lot. And now I really need to sleep - goodnight! 

love is blindness, i don't want to see

I am still in ye olde Iowa, although there is a good chance that tonight is my last night here. [censored] and I had an overall delightful day in the northwest part of the state - he took me to a few of his favorite places around here. Of course, while northwest Iowa is relatively more prosperous than our part of the state, the towns are still small enough that you have to drive quite awhile between places to get to other places. But the tour was great - we went to a meat locker and bought some sausage (not a euphemism), then went to a cafe in Algona and ate some v. tasty sandwiches. Then, [censored] took me to a distillery, where we spent quite awhile talking to the owner - their bourbon is v. tasty, so it was fun to see their space.

After that, we drove through Okoboji, although there wasn't much to see and we decided we weren't willing to risk any crowds there. So we came back to [censored]'s apartment, saw his office, walked around downtown, and eventually went out for dinner. The first place we tried looked great, but it was twenty miles south of [censored]'s town and when we got there we found that they were closed for the weekend. So we came back and went to a restaurant with an outdoor deck - it felt safe from a social distancing standpoint, but our waitress and our food were pretty socially distanced from us as well, so it took forever to get served (and our entrees were lukewarm when they showed up). Worse, [censored]'s 'brisket' was more like chunks of unsalted roast beef in broth, which made no fucking sense. Ugh.

But we got to see a lot of classic cars driving by while we sat on the deck, and [censored] managed to keep from getting smacked in the face by the patio umbrella, so I guess it was partially successful. Then we came home and watched a bunch of tv and talked, and now I need to think about going to sleep so that we can hang out tomorrow. I may head west, depending on how things go....Colorado awaits, but we'll see when I get there. Goodnight!

yet i still recall as i wander on, as clear as the sun in the summer sky

I'm still in ye olde Iowa, but it's a different part of ye olde Iowa - today I drove up to northwest Iowa to see [censored]. I had a lot of unfinished business to take care of this morning, though - I had to wake up, for one, which was onerous enough. Then I loaded my car (using my dad's lawn tractor to haul all my stuff around from the walkout basement up to the driveway, thus saving myself many trips up the stairs) - this included a chair and a piano stool, both of which are probably unnecessary, but I will enjoy having them in my house. I also spent some quality time putting away the photos that we spent the last week sorting through - we didn't get through everything, but things are in much better shape than they were, and I'm looking forward to finishing it (plus possibly expanding to my mom's side of the family) the next time I have time at home.

Then I showered to get a century of dust off me, finished loading my car, and ate some leftover Mexican food to fuel myself for the drive. At that point it was noon, which was only ninety minutes after I'd planned to leave, so that seemed pretty reasonable. I said my farewells to my parents - it wasn't quite as dramatic as getting in a covered wagon and heading off into parts unknown, but in a pandemic you never know. So we hugged it out, and then I dropped my dad off in town before continuing north.

The drive to [censored]'s took a little over 4.5 hours (not helped by stopping for fuel and a bathroom). When I got here, [censored] gave me the grand tour of his apartment, which is v. nice. I also unloaded some stuff from my car (more than I need here, but some tings can't sit in a 120+ degree car for two days). Then we drove around his town so that he could show me the sights - it's a lovely town, with way more stuff than our neck of the woods (but northern Iowa has always had more money than southern Iowa). We stopped at the grocery store to pick up drinks, then got takeout Chinese, which was delish. We then spent the evening watching comedy shows and music videos, which is pretty par for the course.

And now I need to sleep - we have plans tomorrow that require getting up at a reasonable hour, so I should probably sleep at a reasonable hour too. Goodnight!

what a long strange trip it's been

Tonight is my last night for the foreseeable future in my bed in ye olde Iowa. Tomorrow I'm driving up to my brother's town, which is 4.5 hours away - which means I should go to bed so that I can load my car in the morning and do all the other tings that I had intended to do today.

But today was a great last day. I got up, made some iced coffee, and sat on the back porch, where I meditated and then journaled. It was lovely, and while I am looking forward to having my own back patio again, I will miss the pond and the rolling green fields (but I will not miss the flies...Colorado's bug population is practically nonexistent compared to Iowa's). Then I spent most of the rest of the day taking care of a variety of tings around the house, including assessing the growing number of chairs in the downstairs living room (we collect chairs like some people collect thimbles or magnets, although chairs take up much more space). I also did a bit of photo sorting, although not enough; I will have to dump everything into boxes tomorrow, but it's generally in much better shape than when I started and the remaining stuff doesn't include quite so many unknowns.

Somewhere in there, I packed my suitcase, cleaned out the downstairs fridge, tossed a bunch of food and beverages that were in need of tossing, helped Mom organize some stuff that will eventually go to the secondhand store, etc. And I took a bunch of empty boxes and some trash into town, where I made good use of my dad's dumpster. My trash disposal in Denver is pretty great, but it isn't a whole dumpster to call my own, so there are advantages to being here.

For supper, we went into town and had Mexican food - it still feels v. strange to eat in a restaurant, and I am not inclined to do it in Denver, but the Mexican restaurant was pretty quite and so the distancing felt adequate. And after you get a 20oz margarita for $5, distancing doesn't seem so important anymore anyway (jk, wear a mask and wash your hands). But dinner was super tasty, and after we ate we had plenty of time to drive around the backroads some more. We went back down some roads we went down yesterday (including passing through Warsaw again, which is a town that no longer exists) and ended up in Powersville, which is a bustling metropolis in Missouri of approximately 80 people. It was an entertaining excursion, even if it kept me from getting things done....but after stuffing myself full of fajitas and a margarita, I probably wouldn't have gotten anything done anyway.

And now I really should go to bed so that I can get out of here in reasonable time tomorrow - goodnight!

chill after hours

I had a great day, but I'm weirdly exhausted and need to go to bed. I suppose I'm exhausted because I spent six hours in my dad's truck - but we didn't ever get more than twenty miles away from home. I dragged my parents on a quest to see a bunch of old cemeteries, of which there are a couple of dozen, all in varying states of upkeep and with varying accessibility choices. My dad drove, which was a really good thing - he has encyclopedic knowledge of who owned which farms and where the property boundaries are, and while some of the people he referenced were long-dead, it was still fun to hear the stories.

So, we hit up ten or so - some of them were more interesting than others, but all had an air of peaceful melancholy. There were a lot of markers for infant children, as might be expected in a frontier cemetery. There were some interesting stones, occasionally markers for Civil War vets, and many others that could no longer be read. Some of the cemeteries were down dirt roads, which was a trick since it rained over the weekend - luckily we were in my dad's truck, and not my Audi (or the Sunfire that I used to have - I would be dying somewhere if I'd attempted some of those roads in a two-door coupe. The stories and images sparked some ideas for me....not sure what book this will become, or how it will translate into a plot, but it was lovely to spend the day driving around with my parents and I'm looking forward to seeing what these stories become.

When we got home, I took a break and typed up some notes. Then I made chocolate chip chewies to reward my dad for driving me around. Then I relaxed / did some personal work / talked to Chris (a cousin on my mom's side who happens to be one of our nearest neighbors - he stopped by to get something and chatted for a long time). And now I really need to sleep - goodnight!

i used to call her baby but now she's a mother to me

No blog tonight - I had a nice day, mostly spent sorting photos, but I'm sleepy and need to get some decent rest if I'm going to accomplish tomorrow's agenda. That agenda involves more photo sorting - I made it through everything on my grandmother's side of the family, but that leaves a lot of photos on my granddad's side, and I'm not sure I'm going to get everything perfectly rearranged to my liking before it's time to head back to Colorado. But we'll see what dent I can put it in tomorrow. I also have grand plans to see some cemeteries, and I might try to force some kittens to play with me - you know, the usual.

But at this moment, it's time for bed rather than for ruminating over the day. Goodnight!

can music save your mortal soul?

I had a v. good day in ye olde Iowa. The day was bookended with video chats, which was a bit weird (not the chats themselves, just the fact that I had two video calls in one day when I'm on vacation). The first was pretty shortly after I woke up, and it was with a woman named Alicia who also works in tech and is attempting to become a published author. We were connected via our mutual friend Alana (hi Alana!), and it was really lovely to meet her - we had a lot of common experiences, which is always a good thing to connect about. We'll probably chat again in a month or two, so it was nice to make a new writer/tech connection.

Then I spent most of the rest of the day on the back porch - it was rainy off and on, and so cool in comparison to the 90+ degree days we've been having that I wore my hoodie for part of it. I did some planning for my remaining time here, and I did a bit of journaling, and then I spent quite a bit of time talking to my dad, which was great - hopefully we'll get some more time before I leave. My vacation has been v. good for just hanging out on the back porch and talking to my parents, so I'm glad I've spent some time here before I go back to Colorado and end up in quarantine again at some point in the future.

At some point in the late afternoon, I decided that I should (re)tackle the massive spread of family photos. I decided to grab the pile of grandma's relatives from before 1940 and bring it upstairs for secondary sorting - this involved breaking those piles into much smaller piles based on who was in the photo, then putting those smaller piles into file folders for each relevant relative. There are still a ton of photos to go through in the secondary sort, but I think this method is a good one - it makes it easy to sort out what is a direct-line ancestor vs. what is an aunt/uncle or cousin in a previous generation, which becomes less relevant as the generations go on.

I did eventually take a break to have supper - Mom made fish, potatoes, and peas, with strawberries and cream for dessert, and it was pretty tasty. Then I did some more photo organizing, talked to [censored], took some photos of a double rainbow, and then ended the evening with a video chat with some writer friends. And now I really need to go to bed (and perhaps scratch my chigger bites) - goodnight!

wind chimes

Today was lovely - except for the fact that I woke up and discovered that my torso is covered with chigger bites from yesterday's efforts to mortar the cave. This is unfortunate, since chigger bites last for days. But despite being surly (and itchy) from that, I persevered - I got up, got ready, and the spend the morning taking care of tings around the house.

Sometime around eleven, Aunt B and Uncle B showed up with stuff to give to us (note: my mother's basement is coming a chair graveyard; we already have too many and this haul just added six more to the collection. But we had a lovely couple of hours together - my parents made brats, and baked beans, and five cup salad (which involves fruit and coconut and sour cream, just trust me).

After they were gone, I sat around, did some desultory stuff, and said goodbye to [censored]. The evening progressed through multiple rounds of sitting outside + several western movies (mostly for my dad), and ended up a semi-impromptu family dinner. Ritu (and a sleeping Bill), John/Jess, Chandlord, and Claudia/Sam all dialed in, and it was pretty much the same as usual. We especially went deep on nap dresses, slugs (especially slugs named Naner), snails (which are destined to eat Jess's garden, sleeping patterns of infants, yawning (fake, real, and suppressed), etc. So, it was lovely to see them all - but now I've been falling asleep in my chair for the last thirty minutes, so I need to go to bed. Goodnight!

so come out of your cave walking on your hands

Today involved way more manual labor than I am accustomed to, but it was accomplished mostly successfully (although I think I sunburned the scalp under the part in my hair - I usually put sunscreen there, but I forgot, and the part of the day in which I wore a hat apparently wasn't enough to save it). To make a long story short, we have a cave in our yard - it was the storm cellar / root cellar for the old house, and while the old house is destined to collapse, [censored] and I would like to save the cave. I have a lot of fond memories of it - it was a great place to sled from, since you could get some quick speed to hit the driveway with. I also liked just sitting on it back in the day; occasionally we would throw sticks down the chimney, which would hit a metal bucket below (which I may or may not have told [censored] was a witch).

So anyway, the cave is v. picturesque, but the mortar between the bricks is crumbling out and the inner walls are heaving with a century of moving earth. We couldn't do anything about the interior; the dome actually looks good inside, but the entrance could used shored up someday. However, we were able to mortar the entire outside. This involved three bags of mortar, two trips to the lumber yard in town, the use of an old and little-used cement mixer that we happen to have lying around, and a bunch of kneeling on a treacherous slope to slap mortar onto the cave. The end result looks pretty great, if [censored] and I do say so ourselves; the cave won't last forever, but hopefully this prolongs its life.

After the mortaring, we were totally hot and gross - we got super lucky since it was windy and sometimes cloudy, but it was still over 90 degrees, very humid, and completely miserable whenever the sun came out. I took a bit of a break then, but then I helped [censored] with his plans to build a new door for the cave - the old door rotted long ago, and vines were covering the remains, but we want to make a new door to keep animals out. We got about halfway there, although I wasn't as helpful with building as I was with mortaring - with mortaring I was able to spread a lot of mortar (and also get into the cement mixer with my baby hands to scrape it out), but with carpentry I was basically reduced to handing [censored] his pencil and tape measure over and over.

But we made great progress, so that's all lovely. We were rewarded for our efforts with takeout Mexican food from our favorite (aka only) Mexican restaurant in town - Mom and Dad went to pick it up, and Dad knew me well enough to get me a giant margarita to go. So, dinner was great, and then I spent the rest of the evening slowly recovering (and taking a shower, which was even more important).

And now I really need to sleep - goodnight!

enough to make my systems blow

Sadly, yesterday/today were, like yesterday, also filled the death and memories (and a tiny bit of rain). To avoid burying the lede, I shall start with it - I got a text yesterday to tell me that my friend Tammy died last week. The text was from her sister; apparently Tammy had been sick for almost a year but hadn't told most of her friends, but she wanted to make sure we knew after the fact.

So, that was a real shock. Tammy (aka Tammmmeh) was one of my freshman when I was a junior RA, and she drew into Loro my senior year, and so we lived across the hall from each other two years in a row. We had a shared love of dim sum, the Olympics, bad television, late-night trips to Peter's Cafe (where we occasionally stayed up all night so we could go straight to dim sum across the street), mafia, more Olympics, fashion, gossip, and many other tings. Sadly, I'd lost touch with her the last couple of years; she'd moved to Chicago, where I never go, and I had moved to Denver, and life happened....and now she's gone.

Needless to say, I'm still processing. I called Claudia to tell her today (not a fun conversation, but good to talk to her); Shedletsky called me this afternoon and we talked for awhile. It's all strange and surreal, and I have many thoughts....but that's where I'll leave this for now.

//

So, compared to Tammy, the fact that we're anticipating continued kitten mortality really pales in comparison. It also made the slog through family photos weirdly more bearable - it's both great to get through them, and ultimately potentially meaningless in the grand scheme of things. But we've now gone through an initial sort of all four boxes, organizing by family branch and decade. My dad joined in the fun this afternoon and was able to identify many photos that my mom and I had no idea about, which makes sense since it's his side of the family.

The whole thing is like a multidimensional puzzle / the worst game of memory you've ever played - a lot of matching photos to groups and time periods, but made much harder because the photos were tossed very haphazardly into boxes (and moved around many times), which means you might be going through a stack of photos that has my great-grandparents in 1925 next to my second-grade photo alongside my father's report cards from high school. So, remembering if you've seen something before, and then where you put it, when there are thousands of photos is a real trick. But I've gotten real good at identifying some guy named Darl (who must have been my grandma's first cousin, which makes him my first cousin three times removed, which makes him pretty irrelevant), and I think I could pick Uncle Waldo out of a line-up now even though he's been dead for over fifty years (okay, maybe I would have trouble identifying his zombie corpse).

So we're making progress, and that's great. Yesterday I also went with my mom to the next town over the buy groceries so that I could cook some tasty tings this weekend. I experimented with tater tot casserole tonight - it's something that basically required gluten in its usual incarnations because it's made with canned cream of mushroom soup and canned vegetable soup, and those have flour in them. But I found a possible recipe on a gf site, then modified it to suit my intuitions. Basically, I browned some hamburger; then cooked an onion, a carrot, some celery, and some garlic; and then added gf flour, beef stock, milk, soy sauce, worcestershire sauce, tomato paste, and paprika. Combine that all in a baking dish, line up tater tots in neat little rows on top, bake it, and you have something that's pretty good. I think it was probably better than the original, except for the fact that I got my ratios slightly off and the worcestershire sauce needed to tailor it back this summer.

And now, after having finished the fourth and final box + watching some tv with [censored], it's time for bed - goodnight!

we'll paint it red to fit right in

Today was a v. different #smalltownlife day from the last few, full of rain and death and memories. Yes, that was unnecessarily dramatic. But it rained quite a bit overnight and early this morning, which was desperately needed - it interfered with our plans to do a cemetery crawl around the small half-abandoned cemeteries in the county, but the rain was v. necessary for the crops, so it was a worthy sacrifice.

So, since there was no cemetery-hopping to be had, my mom and I started tackling the boxes of photos that we inherited from Uncle Mark, who seemed to have taken them from Gram's, thrown the boxes into a shed, and never organized them after that. We spent several hours this afternoon sorting things out by side of the family + decade, and after several hours of work, we'd gotten through one of the four boxes. So, that's good progress, but perhaps not as fast as we need to be - and now we still have to go back through those piles to decide what we want to keep vs. what we want to send to other relatives vs. what should be tossed.

It's hard to toss things when they're interesting. Case in point: what do you do with my great-grandma's picture album (almost a diary) from her teenage years in the 1920s? It's full of photos of people we don't know, notes about events that are long gone, and enough dust to choke you. But it also has v. amusing bits, like her list of the 'boys I stepped out with', which got up to #36 (fun fact: my great-granddad was #19); photos of all the fun she had with other teenagers around her; and the newspaper clippings from when she and my great-grandfather + another couple eloped to the next county over and got married in the middle of the night (the newspaper was clearly scandalized). But how do you preserve something like that? And how do you cull through hundreds of photos of the past and make it into something that will continue to be interesting in the future?

sssanyway, we threw in the towel around four and I sat on the porch to get some fresh air and journal. Sometime shortly after that, my mom noticed that one of the kittens was weirdly lethargic, so this turned into an effort to save it, which (despite my dad running into town to get milk replacer, and despite my mom attempting to feed it with a syringe) sadly turned into a funeral. We think our cat had too many kittens to feed successfully, but hopefully the remaining four make it....

I couldn't stay to play with kittens, though - I had plans with Hannah (who is both a friend from high school and a distant cousin) to go to her house for dinner, so I headed that way. We had a lovely three hours on her back patio, watching the wilderness beyond her yard and discussing all sorts of fun and interesting things. I could have happily stayed another hour, but since the drive home is treacherous and full of deer waiting to total your car, I got out of there around ten.

And now, I should really sleep so that I can accomplish something in the morning - goodnight!

put me in coach

Today was lovely, but I supposed all vacation days have a higher likelihood of being lovely. I spent most of the morning on the back porch, journaling and organizing some of my notes. In the afternoon, my mom and I made a quick trip to the museum in town. It's been around for a long time and I actually worked there the summer after my freshman year (minimum wage, sitting waiting for tourists who rarely came and turning the lights on/off as the visitors came and went). But they've put a ton of work into it in the twenty+ years since I worked there (I do not like saying 'twenty years') and it was great to see the expanded bits. I'll probably have to go back sometime next week and look at stuff when I have more time, but it was a great outing for the afternoon!

Then we came home, and I spent some more quality time on the porch while my mom made steak and twice baked potatoes. Then my mom and dad were telling stories of some of their escapades in the sixties and seventies, which were pretty entertaining. We ended the evening on the back porch again, watching lightning flickering endlessly in the north - hopefully it rains here overnight, since we need it.

And now I need to sleep - goodnight!

fractals

I've been dozing for the last hour already, so this will be brief - but today was the first day of a long vacation, and it was a great one. I got up, made some coffee, and did an hour of day job stuff, which may sound like a contradiction to today being the first day of vacation - but there were a handful of things that I didn't get to before I signed off last Friday, and getting them done today was important for other people at work. Once that was done, I could sign off with a clear conscience.

Then I helped [censored] with some stuff, and then I made some sweet potato hash with italian sausage. I spent the afternoon messing around, going to the Round Barn, etc. And I said farewell to [censored], who had to go back to where he lives so he can work tomorrow. The day ended with some quality time with my mom on the back porch, and it was all v. lovely.

And now I need to go to sleep in my bed instead of in my chair - goodnight!

i think i know how these things go

I had a nice day in ye olde Iowa - I slept in a little bit, then made some iced coffee and spent the morning cleaning up downstairs and organizing the stuff I'd brought into the house and dumped on the floor in the downstairs living room when I got here last week. Then I spent the afternoon on the back porch, taking care of a variety of personal tings and making some plans. That all got derailed when I decided to play with the feral kittens who have taken over our porch - they weren't sure about playing with me, but I held three of the six (possibly three of the five, since we haven't seen the sixth today) and they were super cute. However, since I'm allergic to cats and I'm especially allergic to feral cats who are also covered in pollen, I then had to shower immediately.

After that, I went into town to wash my car and pick up a couple of things at the grocery store. I got home in time for supper, which was last night's pulled pork + fresh sweet corn, 'basket bobs' (the veggies that usually go on kebabs, but tossed into a basket to grill instead, which saves a ton of time), and leftover five cup salad. That was all super tasty, and it made me want a nap...but I pushed through. I then spent the evening reading old books about my county while off-and-on watching a Western (Silverado, which starred a very young Kevin Costner as a no-name actor around a bunch of much more famous actors, which was kind of funny).

And now I need to sleep - goodnight!

lessen the distance between us

I had a v. lazy first day of vacation...but not the laziest of days I've had here before, so I'll take it. I slept in a little bit, then showered, made some iced coffee, and went into town to pick up [censored] since he'd taken a vehicle into town to leave there. Then I spent the late morning / early afternoon hours messing around with my laptop, planner, journal, etc - I'm trying to come up with an adequate system to track my notes, photos, memories, etc. while I'm here, and that requires trying to structure data that is completely unstructured.

But eventually I stopped staring at screens and attempted to help [censored] with one of the projects that we're trying to accomplish this weekend - we're trying to protect the old cave (root cellar) in our yard so that it lasts another few decades, but none of us have even been in it in forever and so needed to examine it before coming up with a game plan. [censored] did all the (literal) heavy lifting by beating back the weeds and pulling up the rotted plywood and former door that covered the entrance, then going in and pulling out the interior door as well (in much better condition, but had fallen off the hinges). The cave is actually in surprisingly decent shape inside, although I certainly wouldn't trust my life to it in a tornado - and there were no snakes or skunks, just a whole flurry of spiders.

So we examined the cave, then went into the lumber yard and bought some mortar to test out our mortaring skills (and I bought some work gloves to protect my delicate city hands). We didn't get around to mortaring, though - instead we drove around and looked at properties and generally gossipped about the local surroundings.

Then we came home - supper was calling, and it was delish. My dad made pulled pork in his smoker, and my mom contributed baked potatoes, layered lettuce, and five cup salad, and it was all super tasty. After that, we were all pretty low energy and the tv signal wasn't coming in due to heat/storms...so I sat outside and journaled for a bit, then retreated to my room. And now it's time for bed - goodnight!

starting from zero got nothing to lose

Today was the last day of my week of working from Iowa....which means vacation starts now! Of course, I had a ton to do before I left, so I got up around 7:30, showered, made some coffee, and then slogged from 9ish until after six. It was a constant slog, too - I didn't have as many meetings as I did the last couple of days, but I had a million things to cross off my to-do list, so I had to stay buckled down.

But, I got to the point where I felt comfortable calling it, so I guess I'm on vacation. Of course there are still a few things I want to try to do this weekend before being off-off, but they're minor and won't take much time. And then I can slide straight into writing / family stuff / Iowa stuff for a few weeks, which will be delightful.

When I finished working, it was just in time for supper - my mom made a ribeye roast (similar to prime rib) and corn on the cob and layered lettuce, and it was perfect. We had some drama after dinner involving a raccoon and a kitten, but everyone who was meant to survive is still alive, so I guess it wasn't that much drama after all. Then I hung out in the kitchen and inadvertently got into a political discussion with my parents, but we went to our corners after eleven, so I've been unwinding / taking care of some tiny bits of work stuff since then.

And now it's time for bed - I want to spend some time tomorrow thinking about how to maximize my vacation, or at least how to effectively annoy [censored]. Goodnight!

chandelier

I worked a ton today, so I really need to sign off and decompress for approx thirty seconds before going to sleep. I got up in time to do a few hours of work before my meetings began - thanks to be in the central time zone, my first meeting wasn't until eleven, so I was able to crank through stuff this morning. But then I had a meeting from 11-12, a break for lunch, and then meetings from 1-6.

At that point, I had to switch into Iowa mode - my mom made sweet corn for dinner (the first of the season! my dad picked it up in Des Moines today), so we ate corn as one should in July. Then, my mom and I went into town for a sort-of socially distanced (at least it was outdoors) gathering of some women that we're in a club with. It was good to see them all, and I sincerely hope I didn't take them coronavirus (although some of them are being less careful than I am, so ultimately I probably wouldn't feel compelled to take the blame on that one).

Then we came home, and I've been working for almost three hours - which means I should throw in the towel and go to bed. Goodnight!

life is hard enough with one identity

I had a long but good day - I worked pretty much nonstop, with a bunch of meetings and a relatively important presentation in the afternoon, and I wasn't done until six. But then I had time to relax - I hung out with my parents, enjoyed one of my favorite meals (cheeseburgers and fried potatoes, along with broccoli salad - my mother knows me well), and then sat on the back porch. I read part of the town's centennial book tonight - it was published in the 1970s in honor of the town's centennial, and it has a bunch of stuff from various points in the town's history. It's interesting stuff, and I'm looking forward to diving in more when I'm properly on vacation.

But right now I'm not on vacation, and I have a million things to do in the next few days, so it's time for bed. Goodnight!

when we were kids

I'm going to go to bed immediately - I slogged all day, took some wee breaks for food / talking to family, and then did some more slogging tonight. I have one more week...four more days...before vacation, and we'll see if I make it. But for now I really need to sleep - goodnight!

i have a dream about her, she rings my bell

Happy Sunday from ye olde Iowa! Today was pretty lowkey, all in all. I got up relatively early (for me in Iowa), hung out, made some coffee, and then did some planning + day job work for about ninety minutes. I'm working from Iowa this week and I have a lot to get done, which means that it was smart to try to get a bit of a head start on it today.

After that, I ate some lunch, took a quick nap, took a shower, and thought I might do some more stuff around the house. Instead, [censored] and I drove over to our sister's house to pick up a piece of equipment that my dad had loaned her a couple of months ago - her son used my dad's excavator to install some tile in her backyard, and if you have no idea what I'm talking about, you're part of the blog audience who doesn't live in Iowa. Before we went over there, [censored] and I did a tour of his properties to find some log chains and other equipment, and then he hooked onto a trailer using one of my dad's work trucks that was capable of pulling the weight of the excavator (my Audi has a hitch, but I don't think it would have worked).

So we drove over there, and [censored] loaded the excavator while I talked to Jackie. Then we drove back, dropped the excavator off, and returned the truck/trailer. All told, this exercise took close to three hours, but it was good bonding time with [censored] and I got to see my sister, so I'll take it.

Then we came home, ate supper (leftover brisket + perfect fried potatoes), and then [censored] and I went out to Logan and Sammi's house. Logan is [censored]'s best friend from high school, just as Katie is for me, and it was really fun to see them. Of course, if one of them has the 'rona, we now all have it. And now, on that fun note, it's time for bed - goodnight!

steady as she goes

I already fell asleep once tonight - so stopping in quickly to say that I had another great day in ye olde Iowa. Aunt Kathy and Drewbaby came down for the day, and we spent most of it on the back porch, watching my dad watching his smoker while he made brisket. We also had bratwurst and potato salad for lunch, and at some point in the afternoon Kathy and I split some rosé.

So it was all quite nice, and hopefully it's a sign of many more lovely days to come while I'm here. But now I need to sleep again - goodnight!

are you my life force

I had a lovely first day in ye olde Iowa. I got up earlier than I usually do on Iowa days because I had left some tings in my car that needed to be brought into the house before the sun turned scorching. So I accomplished that, drank some iced coffee, talked to my parents, etc.

At some point [censored] needed to go into town to pick up his string trimmers, so I went with him - and we ended up taking a v. long tour of part of the county. The tour started with the intent of seeing a newly paved road in town (v. exciting! although I miss the pothole that I used to veer around when driving past the cemetery toward the high school at slightly too high a speed to avoid being late many years ago). But we meandered through other parts of the county and ended up on a v. long dirt road - we're verging on a drought here, so the dirt road was passable, but I would not recommend it after a rain. It dumped us out at an old, nearly abandoned cemetery - most of the burials were in the 1870s-1890s. Of course, the cemetery isn't completely abandoned since it still gets mowed (my parents' responsibility, weirdly enough, since they're in the township government). But it feels miles from anywhere, and so very different than my life in Denver that it's always a bit strange to re-immerse myself in life here.

Then we came home and I spent the afternoon messing around the house and outside. Tonight, we had another round of family photos - Jackie and Shawn came over, and we did a bunch of group and individual shots. It was nice to see them, although it was brief; it was also nice to see Allie, although coming to visit us a few days after flying to North Carolina seems like a good way to get the 'rona.

And now I'm exhausted and need to sleep - goodnight!

white wings in my pillows and blankets

I'm in ye olde Iowa after a mad scramble to get out of my Denver house + a v. uneventful ten hour drive. The drive went pretty fast - I only stopped twice (in North Platte and Lincoln) for gas + bathroom + caffeine, so I was about as efficient as I could be. I got home just in time to interrupt the end of the movie my parents were watching, but they were fairly kind about it. And [censored] showed up after I did, so now we're all reunited.

But this brief blog will have to suffice - I need to sleep so I can get cracking in the morning. Goodnight!

take me down to paradise city

I had more work to do this morning than I wanted to, and then I spent a whole bunch of energy late in the day to run a ton of errands. I also got a coronavirus test, which was probably unnecessary - and it hurt about as much as I expected, so that was fun! And I dropped several pots of petunias off at Katie's - I'm headed to ye olde Iowa for an indeterminate length of time and she's graciously agreed to water my indoor plants once a week, but the petunias need more water and have now been slipped inconspicuously into James's watering duties. We hung out far apart on her porch for awhile, and I would have preferred to stay all night...but I had many tings to do, and so we parted ways.

I also dropped some work stuff off at Kelly's, got a car wash, got gas, got some rosé, dropped off some stuff at the post office, and picked up takeout pizza to eat tonight + have for tomorrow. And I spent some quality time taking care of yard stuff, which I really should have done this weekend - but I think I either dug up or cut off every little attempt that the nearby tree of heaven is making to colonize my yard, so hopefully the yard will survive a couple of weeks without me.

Then I did some stuff around the house, cleaned out my fridge, etc. And now I'm mostly packed, although I still have to throw some stuff in bags and load my car - but I think I should pause for tonight and get some sleep. Wish me luck getting out of here tomorrow - goodnight!