No dog for us, we've decided. Paul's got a hell of a semester ahead of him, and we've got enough going on that we wanted to wait until we can both bring our full attention to a new puppy.
I will be sad about it for a while, but I'll get over it.
Know what, though? That means that a really, super, special puppy is up for grabs. If you know anyone who needs a pup, please consider this one. She's quite the dignified little girl, and she'll make someone an excellent companion.
So Paul and I have been kicking around the idea of getting a dog for, oh, six months or a year. We talk about it occasionally.
Last week I idly started flipping through PetFinder.org again, something I do every once in a while, and found this adorable corgi mix pup. I went out on my lunch hour yesterday to visit her, and then Paul and I went back that evening.
She's the absolute, perfect, most ideal dog we could get -- if we want a dog. She's tiny, sedate, affectionate, curious, doesn't chase cats, and is pretty much full grown at about twelve to fifteen pounds. I can guarantee our boy-cat's taller than she is. She's about six months, which means she's still very trainable, and has a big enough bladder to make crate-training and housebreaking vastly easier than with a puppy. She let us touch her eyes, ears, paws, tail, belly, chest and nose with no biting or mouthing, which makes me believe that she'll be fine around (responsible) kids. She seems utterly eager to please, which will make training go easer. She loves to be petted and touched, and literally stops whatever she's doing to be petted. She gets on fine with the other dogs in her kennel. Forty-five dogs in that yard, all barking. Baby corgi? Only one not barking. She has the most adorable face; she looks like a pembroke corgi, mostly, with possibly some Shiba Inu or maybe some Pomeranian, based on how foxy her face is. She looks just like a little fox.
Now for the cons: She's probably not housebroken, has probably lived in a kennel her entire life, and has no commands or training whatsoever. She'll be coming into a house with two geriatric cats that have never been with dog full-time, two cats who can't be fed on a table or dryer or whatever to keep the dog from eatiing their cat chow. We have no backyard or fenced in area where she could be put out to relieve herself, which means that we'd have to walk/scoop every time she needs to go out.
So after speaking with Pam and Karen last night (Pam: You totally rock, and Paul and I were both most impressed with your attitude, knowledge, and realistic outlook on training), we're still deciding. We talked it over for about an hour last night, slept on it, talked for an hour this morning, and are still discussing. I refuse to rush a decision on a living being.
If we do not wind up taking her, for reasons of lifestyle, schedule and cat, I really truly must recommend this heartstring-tugger to anyone currently looking for an apartment-size canine. She's wonderful, and she'll make someone an outstanding pet, even if it isn't us. We can also both very much vouch for the no-kill shelter at which she's lodged; it smelled like sixty wet dogs, but not sixty wet dogs and sixty dogs' worth of dog excreta, which is pretty difficult to pull off. All dogs in the yard were in good health and quite social, and most were under fifty pounds. On the west side of the state and looking for a small dog? Check these guys out.
Yo-Yo Master and the Lost Kid -- WE FINALLY FOUND IT! WOO!
I had to get three weekends of cooking fun stuff into one. Cooking has become an outlet for me, in the way that art used to be. Now art is more of a job, and I need something else that's fun. I ran to the farmers' market, returned with a ton of good deals, including an entire peck of 'second' peaches for one dollar! Paul volunteered for chopping duty, so together, we made:
Oh, and I must mention how much the Victorio strainer rocks. What an awesome little invention. I processed an entire bushel of tomatoes in probably twenty minutes, and if I'd had a more stable setup, I could have done it in even less time. All the waste from a full bushel fit into one quart bag. That's some efficiency! Thanks, Jen, for the tip about running the pulp through a second time... I got a ton more juice out than I thought I would.
Our buddy Jane Schelhas has a house for sale or rent on the 700 block of Clinton street in Kalamazoo. It's in the Edison neighborhood, on a very very good block. It's three bedrooms, well-maintained, and next door to Jane's house. It's within easy walking distance of the farmer's market, and five minutes to downtown by car or fifteen by bike.
She describes it as being "Too big for two renters, but perfect for three renters or a married couple." Price is $800/month to rent (yes, the entire house) or $82,500 to buy. Dudes. $82,500 for an entire house in a decent neighborhood. Snap this one up: (269) 345-4507.
So I looked at my calendar, and I realized that this coming weekend is the Last Weekend In August (gasp!) and that the next two weekends are weddings, and the weekend after that I'm helping my brother put in his front lawn. I really want to can some tomatoes this fall -- so it looks like I'm canning this weekend.
My own puny garden doesn't have enough ripe tomatoes to make one meal's worth of spaghetti sauce, let alone enough to can, so I called up Paul's mom, who had suggested that I come out and raid her garden. I took her up on her quite generous offer, and returned home last night with an enormous haul: a bushel of mixed tomatoes (romas, beefsteaks, and these huge safety-cone-orange two-pound wonders called Kellogg's Breakfast), four peppers, two eggplants (including one as big as my head), an enormous bouquet of basil, a pannier full of tiny apples and pears, and a beautiful bunch of black-eyed susans.
I got home and I set to work. I made an ice-cube tray full of pesto, roasted the huge eggplant for babaganouj (one eggplant, five cups of baba -- it was enormous) cleaned, sorted and removed bad spots on the tomatoes and then made dinner with the results. We had fresh baba and corn chips, sliced tiny apples with pesto, and sliced tomatoes with sugar, salt and pepper. Heavenly.
After all that, I even got two full pages inked. Go me.
So now we have two full pints of baba and a pound of pesto in the freezer, and Saturday I'll make tomato sauce and can it. Shouldn't be hard; I'll just run the 'maters through the vittorio strainer, add garlic, onion, red wine, pepper and fresh herbs from the garden, and keep an eye on it all day as it simmers. Once it's done, probably on Sunday, I'll heat it up again and then water-bath the jars. No sense in doing all the work to stew tomatoes, only to have to make them into sauce each time I open a jar. Much more logical to make the sauce up front. I also will be drying a good portion of the romas for Paul's mom, who loves the oil-soaked sundried tomatoes I made earlier this year. mmmmm.
Yay for harvest time.
Stuff like this makes me so completely insane that if I even tried to grapple with it, I'd decend into nothing more than profane ranting.
So.
I'm going to let the nice folks over at BoingBoing do it for me. I've got a book to finish, dammit.
Inspired by Kat's wonderful example from two weeks ago, I made a ginger-peach pie last night. I know I shouldn't've, as I'm still desperately trying to get some extra weight off, so I cut a bunch of corners to hopefully excise a few extra calories and make it somewhat healthier. Here's the recipe:
Make a pie shell with 100% whole wheat flour. Shut up, it tastes just fine.
Blanch and peel five ripe peaches. Slice thin and toss in a bowl with two tablespoons cornstarch, a quarter cup of sugar and a whole raw egg. Sprinkle with a teaspoon of cinnamon, a dash of fresh-grated nutmeg and two tablespoons loosely chopped crystallized ginger.
Bake at 400F for fifteen minutes, then reduce heat to 325F for another 45 minutes. Don't wait for a whole-wheat crust to brown more than a little.
If I had it to do over, actually, I wouldn't use any extra sugar at all. Between the sweetened ginger and the sweet peaches, it didn't need any help. The pie was especially good because it wasn't oversweet in that gross, corn-syrupy way that most fruit pies are these days.
It was a gorgeous afternoon, so Paul and I drove out to the nature center for a walk in the woods -- partially for a change of pace, and partially to have something with which to compare the amazing fall colors.
While we were there, we heard a pair of barred owls makin' with the sexy talk. It was cool -- and only the second time I've ever heard an owl calling in its natural environs. The first was a wee boreal owl up in Alaska this summer.
Hooray and stuff. Off to pick up Silverbean. And for the amount of money she cost, she better do the dishes for, like, the next five years.
It's been chilly during our morning walks the last few days, with temperatures hovering around 50F. For some reason, we started talking about oatmeal during our walk on Wednesday, so I decided to whip up a batch of the Best Oatmeal in the Known Universe.
The night before you wish to eat your oatmeal, drag out your crockpot. Turn crockpot to low, and add:
4 cups water
2 cups milk
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp fresh grated nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp vanilla
1/4- 1/2 cup dried cherries
Get a frying pan and lightly toast two cups of oat groats (also known as Scottish or steel-cut oats, available from Bob's Red Mill or any good food coop). You'll probably need to toast one cup at a time. Stop toasting when the oats smell nutty; the point is to add some bonus flavor, not actually cook the oats. Add the hot oats to the crockpot. Cover and go to bed. In the morning, eat.
You can add honey or sugar, or if you're dieting, this is one application in which Stevia does not taste like ass.
There will be tons of leftovers. Cover the crockpot and put it in the fridge. Each day, take a heaping spoonful off the rubbery, gelatinous block of oatmeal and add some milk or yogurt. If you want it hot, microwave it. If you like it cold, like I do, just kinda stir it until it stops being a solid.
Best. Oatmeal. Ever.
In a departure from my bitching about the health of my car, I'm going to post about my wonderful friends.
Had lunch with Jen and Sol, who just got back from Newfoundland. Ate much sushi and had a lot of fun. I really miss those two.
Had dessert with Jim and Kat, who fed me ginger peach pie that was unbelievably good. Laughed much, talked much, watched Film Board of Canada shorts. And then Jim rescued me from my own stupidity by jumping Paul's car after I left the lights on all day. le sigh.
Finally made it home tired and late, but happy. I am a lucky woman.
Verdict?
The cylinder head's trashed. New one on order. Over a thousand dollars, not counting installation.
The driver's side door's power window is borked. Close to three hundred with labor.
May actually be done by the end of the week, if the parts all get here.
Anybody want to join me in a consolation margarita? I'd be most grateful.
(On the positive side, I am deeply grateful that I've managed to live a life where not having a second car is a minor inconvenience. Only needed to borrow Paul's car once.)
Ah, the joys of being a self-publisher.
When you sell books to national bookstores, there's always a chance that the books won't sell and you'll have to buy them back. This happened today with the first edition of Paul's Little White Mouse Volume 1. We have taken back around 500 copies, and just found out that we need to take back another 500. We'll be up to our ears in these things!
So -- who wants one? We're now selling them at the cut rate of five bucks each. Yes, that's right, the first quarter of Paul's critically praised series for only a finskeroo. Christmas is coming; these make cheap stocking stuffers! Interested? Hit Paul's site -- he should have a sales page up for them soon -- or email him at Paul At Paulsizer dot com. Buy 'em for your school! Your library! Your kids! Your kids' kids! You know you want one!
God bless the Midwestern funerary traditions; we didn't need to cook for a week. However, all we had available to eat was meat and starch; I think I ate about two servings of actual vegetables in seven days. I knew I must have put on some weight just from all the starch, but I figured that after five days back on my normal diet I'd have at least put some of it off.
Nope.
Went to put on my one pair of reliable work jeans that I can always get into and... damn it. This is un. acc. ceptable. Instead of the burritos we were craving, it was chicken salads, water and an hour's walk up to East Campus and back, including the long stairs up the hill.
Tomorrow? More walking, water, and no doubt cursing. Thank Goodness for sarongs.
I will not size up again. I refuse to. If it means going down to Gazelle Sports on Tuesday and buying a goddamn pair of running shoes, I will, so help me Wobblia. I'm just praying that some of this is friggin' water retention. DAMN!
Woke up on Saturday with an insane need to putter. So many things had been let go, for so many reasons -- art, work, the heat, and finally, the funeral. Stacks of stuff were built up everywhere. I'm a girl who usually likes a bit of clutter in her life, but damn.
So what did we do? Went to the beach, of course. Well, see, as badly as I needed to clean house, I needed a detox day even worse. And, what with it being half-past August (for crying out loud!) we won't have many more gorgeous weekends like this one. We dozed on the beach, read books, and went for a nice long walk, then talked with Paul's folks for a couple hours. We haven't seen each other in ages, so that was definitely overdue. The one sad thing is that the water was ~50F (it was 80F last week, no joke) and it was so freaking cold that no one was going in past their knees without a wetsuit. It was hypothermia cold, no kidding. So we splashed and walked in the surf, but that was about it.
Today I woke up with an even greater need to putter. I was outside weeding by 9am, and by 4 I had filed about a Janerweight of misplaced papers, cds, books and other clutter, reorganized the library bookshelves, re-organized my cds, made pesto, made peanut sauce, ran laundry, cleaned the back patio, watered all the plants and made a late lunch.
Boy, did that feel good.
Now, back in my studio, with a tolerable level of disorganization around, I've got four pages thumbnailed and am getting ready to thumbnail and choreograph another big scene. Go, me.
Yesterday was cooler and overcast, a little humid but not too bad. After work, we had neighbor Nora and her daughter Rachel, and neighbors Floyd and Theresa and their two daughters Gabrielle and Allura over for dinner. At one time, Floyd had a small, portable ribs business that he'd operate out of parking lots. He's trying to get it going again, so we were thrilled when he offered to bring ribs and chops to cook. Paul and I supplied brats and sweet corn, and Nora and Rachel brought fresh veg from their garden, including sliced tomatoes with scallion, onion and garlic (all homegrown) dressed with balsamic and goat cheese. Floyd wheeled over his grill, and we had one for meat and one for veg.
Floyd's barbecue was predictably outstanding; he'd started marinating the ribs and chops early that morning and they were fall-off-the-bone perfect. The grilled veg were a huge hit, and the squash and eggplant disappeared before anything else. We ate ourselves stupid, the girls drew chalk pictures all over the driveway, and we talked until well past dark.
Everyone had such a wonderful time that we immediately began plotting the takeover of the sidestreet for a block party over Labor Day. Stay tuned. Muahahhaaha.
Where we live in Kalamazoo, we have two grocery stores nearby, both in the Harding's chain: an upscale one and a downscale one. The downscale one is, by far, our favorite; it's cheaper and easy to maneuver in and isn't flooded with scary yuppies. In fact, the upscale Harding's is known locally as the "Yuppie Harding's" or the "Bourgie Harding's." The other thing it's got going for it is all its honest-to-God ethnic food, especially El Milagro Tortilla Chips, which are the very best tortilla chips ever.
Each week, the El Milagro truck trundles its way out from the South Side of Chicago, bearing gifts of yummy tortilla products. And every week they sell out. Whenever Paul and I are lucky enough to be in the store while they still have El Milagro chips in stock, we buy three bags at least, chucking them in the cart with a lusty cry of "EL MEEELLAAAAGRRRROH!"
Today, on a whim, I Googled them and found that they have several restaurants as well as a factory, and also that they're environmentally responsible with their fleet of delivery trucks. Who could ask for more?
The saga of Silverbean continues.
Okay, let me start from the beginning. I was driving along 94, and suddenly the car lost accelleration and, once I pulled over, could not be restarted. Had it towed to a trusted mechanic in Ann Arbor, Jack at Miller-Maple Marathon. He couldn't get to it that day or possibly the next, so I had it towed to another mechanic downtown. The mechanic said he couldn't get to it, but could at least squeeze in a diagnosis for me.
Before the diagnosis, the mechanic called me to let me know that they had locked my keys in the car, and when I informed them my other set was with Paul in Chicago, they informed me that they'd have to slimjim the lock and that they couldn't be responsible for any damage. (This becomes important, later.) The diagnosis came back as a broken timing belt, which is a Very Bad Thing. The rough estimate was a week in the shop and over $3K in repairs.
So, as was outlined at great length in a previous post, the car eventually went back to Kalamazoo without me, and got to my regular mechanic, Kalamazoo Imports. That was on Thursday morning, a week ago. The owner was out of town, so although they took a look at the engine, the diagnosis was "Wow, that's bad. We should wait for the owner to get back."
I decided to go ahead with exploratory surgery (so to speak) wherein it was determined that four out of eight valves in the cylinderhead were bent. This is better than having the whole head destroyed, but it'll still have to be machined out. It's currently at a local machine shop awaiting repair, which should cost about half of the $1600 that a new head would cost.
During the process of repairing the car, the owner tried to roll down my driver's side power window, and -- you guessed it! -- it jumped the track and fell straight down inside the door with a loud crack. To add insult to injury, they now have to take apart the door to see how bad the other mechanic hosed my window when trying to get the car unlocked.
But wait! The fun's not over yet! Even if we get the machined cylinderhead back, and the timing belt all replaced, and everything all put back together, the car could still fail a compression test -- and if that happens, the owner has advised me to junk the car. So there's the slim but nonzero chance I could be out about $2K in work and still have a nonfunctional car. I reeeeeeeeeally hope this doesn't happen. Mark says the bottom of the engine looks pretty okay, but there's no way to tell for sure until it's all hooked back up again.
I prepared Paul last night for the worst-case scenario: we may have to go down to a one-car household; paying the bill to repair Silverbean would bleed my savings dry and I would have to spend a couple months scraping up a down payment.
So, if anyone has any extra appendages they can cross for poor old Silverbean, it'd be much appreciated.
Wizard World Con Report, in Pictures
It was a prank pulled by a bunch of 2600 hackers. They revealed the secret at DEFCON. Nice job, guys.
There are many blessings in a home death:
To count each breath as it comes
Bearing witness to the silent passage of life
The chance to pray, to weep, to compose, before the funeral home is called
The dignification of the body.
To kiss, to hold, and finally to release:
There are many blessings in a home death.
Lucille Louise Martin passed away at 9:30am this morning. She was eighty-five.
Visitation will be Sunday from 2-6 at Cole Funeral Home in Chelsea.
Funeral will be Monday at St. Paul's UCC Church.
Details to follow.
I drove in to Ann Arobor on Wednesday instead of my usual Monday, to spell my mother in caring for Gram Lucy so that she could teach her pottery class. On the way in, my car lost its timing belt, and subsequently turned its engine into a very expensive paperweight. I had it towed to two separate service stations in Ann Arbor, neither of which could get to it within seven days. The second place did me the favor of squeezing in a diagnosis and allowing it to remain on their lot until morning so that I could arrange to have it towed back to Kalamazoo. I worked a normal day and caught a ride to mom's house in Chelsea with a coworker.
That evening, I called AAA and they told me that it'd be no problem to have the car towed that evening, and that I could ride back to KZoo with the driver. Mom went to class and I stayed with Gram, and after mom got back, I called AAA back to arrange for the tow. Different story, this time -- the tow company won't take my car from a closed facility, even though I had the paid stamped receipt stating that I owed no money on the car. Ironically, if I'd broken down on the side of the road, they'd have had no problem towing me home. I begged, wheedled, cajoled, and whined to no avail, and lost 90 minutes of my life in bureaucratic hell. I even offered to go down there and push the car into the middle of the street. No soap.
Mom washed my only change of clothes and I spent the night. I was awakened at 5:30 by my mother hollering up the stairs that there was a bat in the house and could I please come kill it. I seem to be gaining some sort of insane batbuster reputation. Anyway, I finally pinned the bat to the floor with a carpet squeegee while fending off a 200-lb golden retriever and got it released. Got back inside, changed clothes, and found Gram up and sitting at the kitchen table, complaining of a stomachache, which is unusual because she almost never rises before 9am. Mom got ready to drop me off at the dealership as soon as it opened, and I had breakfast with Gram. As we sat talking, she got paler and paler and complained of worsening pain. Mom elected to stay with Gram, and we phoned a friend and cancelled my plans to ride home with the car.
Mom's friend helped me get my car sent off, and after a few phonecalls, we elected to return home and stay with mom.
Gram passed two minutes before we walked in the door.
Spent the day involved in funerary minutae, and thanked my stars that I hadn't been trapped in Kalamazoo with no car and Paul in Chicago. Sometimes life's just funny that way.
Anyway, there's the story. Chances are good I won't be back online until Tuesday. Until then, much love to you all, and thank you all for your thoughts and prayers, your sympathies and kindnesses.
At San Diego Comicon this year, there was a panel on Black Comics Creators. Pam was there, and gives her take. Long, but very very much worth a read.
Excerpts:
A black woman got to the mic and asked the panelists why she is more likely to consistently find rounded portrayals of black women in books created by white British male authors. She gave a bunch of examples, primarily from Vertigo books.Rza answered that she has to wait for the men to get established, as they are just now getting through the door. Judging from the hoots, jeers and inarticulate screams of outrage from the crowd, that did not go over well. Davis the First’s joke about angry black women was funny, but didn’t completely diffuse the vibe.
The woman then said that she’s 47-years-old, she’s been reading comics since she was a little girl, and asked how long was she expected to wait.
Rza’s response: You’re 47? Wow, you look good for 47. No, really, isn’t she hot for 47? And so forth. Additionally, Rza mentioned his child’s love of manga, which left the implication that he ladies will have to wait a generation or two for these young black female manga fans to come into their own.
...
All that happened a scant few minutes after another fan encounter worth mentioning.
A guy got up to the mic and launched into Testifying about martial arts movies. Something about the love black people have for kung-fu flicks, and the spiritual dimension of kung-fu flicks, and black people are spiritual, and why hasn’t there been a black kung-fu flick out of Hollywood, and how do we get one made.
Hudlin said, wanna see how to get one made? He looks to his left and says to Rza, wanna do a black kung-fu flick? Rza says, sure! They shake hands. Cowan reaches over with let me get a piece of that, bumps fists with them, and he’s in on it too. And the huzzahs rose joyously from the audience.
Boom! Just like that, we all witnessed a deal go down. [...] The women were told they have to wait for their representation, but guys? Totally all over the kung-fu movie thing! A man can get up at a panel about black comic BOOKS and ramble about black kung-fu MOVIES and be taken seriously enough for a handshake deal to go down. That man is not considered nutcase, nor is he denigrated for his size as a way of dismissing his input. He was a big guy. Nobody on that panel said to him wow, you’re into martial arts? Couldn’t tell by lookin’ at ya. Maybe you should look into signing up for a martial arts workout program or something.
My beta-readers told me to cut that bit as it could be construed as a petty, personal attack against whoever that guy was, diverting from the main issue. Obviously I have chosen to ignore that advice. I think noting the treatment of his input and use of his physical being as compared to the treatment of her input and use of her physical being is part of the issue. It speaks volumes as to the sexist mindset that is a plague throughout this industry, no matter where you fall on the color line.
Go, Pam, Go.
It is hot. Too hot to move, think, or even be witty: over 110 in the heat index and 70% humidity. All I have brains for at the moment are short updates.
The fish are dead. One on Friday, one on Saturday. I'm bummed. The mosquito larvae are back in force. This time it's chemicals.
We went to renfair on Saturday with Steve, Wendy and Tish. It was at least 95F. We had a great time, but next time I'm totally camping in water and food to save money. They didn't check my basket, so I could have brought anything in. Spent way too much money, bought many pretty sparkly things, and laughed our asses off at Ric Roc, an amazing juggler/fire eater/pantomime artist.
Pantomime shows are largely a lost art thanks to the crushing influence of lameass stripey-shirted mimes and their stupid shrinking boxes. Ric Roc did a dumbshow that was intelligent, physically taxing, hysterically funny and utterly devoid of dick and fart jokes. I haven't laughed that hard at Fest entertainment since I was sixteen.
Ded Bob was at Silverleaf. Ded Bob is now a franchise. This disappoints me greatly, especially considering that "Pudj" (the original puppeteer, Clark, goes by "Smuj") was an inferior artist, and all three of us who'd seen Ded Bob before noticed immediately.
I bought a new bodice. It's reversable, and has spring steel boning. It makes me happy, though I'll probably only wear it once per year, if that.
I also bought a bunch of nice research books on early celts. Dover books rock.
Tom and Amanda came by on Sunday to pick up their laptop. The liked it a lot. We like them a lot.
Gram came home from the Hospital on Sunday. She has new and improved meds, and has to comply with a few basic regimens to make sure she stays healthy and her meds stay balanced. Overall, she's doing well, and other than sleeping downstairs rather than upstairs, appears ready to resume a relatively normal life. Thanks again and again to everyone who sent prayers and love and good thoughts her way. We really, really needed them and appreciated them.
I'm working on a pair of pinups for friends because I desperately need a break from Vogelein. I'm not slacking, though -- I finished a page on Friday and one on Sunday, and I have only two more pages to color before this batch of nine is done, bringing the total pages completed to 93. Baaaaaaaaby steps.
We had another bat in the house. Paul noticed a dark brown lump in the top roll of one windowshade, so we had the advantage of attempting to catch this one while he was sleeping. The attempt failed, of course; bats don't like to be caught. Fortunately, we're getting better at ushering bats out of the house without injuring them; we had this one out the window in about five minutes.
Paul continues to be the best husband ever.