apples

This weekend my mom took me and Jon to an apple orchard. A friend of our family owns the orchard. It is impossible to visit without entertaining the notion of living exactly that life. When we were little, their daughters taught us how to play tetherball. Until then, we thought tetherball was just a game that bears played in The Far Side comics by Gary Larson. The shop attached to their home is full of temptations. Sugar wafers for 88 cents a pack, sparkling bottled fruit juices, homemade jams and jellies, infused oils and buttery caramels. Not to mention the perfume of bags and bags of fresh picked apples. I bought orange marmalade and a giant jug of honey. Mom loaded up on honeycrisp apples. We ate apples the whole way home. Everyone passed me their cores because I eat them down the farthest. At home, I helped mom wrap each individual apple in a half sheet of newspaper. Mom keeps these in the basement refrigerator that is unplugged. When I opened the fridge to stock up the apples, I found it nearly full of apples already. If it had been anything else, I would think my mom has a problem. But as it was, I thought to myself that there is nothing wrong with having an old refrigerator in your basement so chock full of apples that you could catch the thick sweet smell of them in a jar.

day in the life of dad

This was what my dad was up to on Saturday.

6:00am- Dad wakes up to feed Muggles then returns to bed.

10:20am- Dad places a blue Obama bumper sticker on the blue pick-up.

10:30am- Dad meets me in the truck at the halfway point of my jog.

10:35am- Dad stops jogging to compile a small pile of garbage composed mostly of shredded plastic bags. He will return to pick this up at some point in the near future

11:00am- Jog is finished. Dad overhears Mom's plan to take Jon and I to the apple orchard. Estimated time of departure- as soon as possible.

11:05am- Dad decides he will accompany us to the orchard, but first...he will get a 'ten-minute' haircut.

11:30am- Dad is dropped off at the blue pick-up by me. He recounts a recent lecture he attended by a Rwandan refugee. It is an incredibly moving story. I momentarily feel as though being late does not matter.

11:45am- Dad must achieve an unscheduled haircut in the time it takes me to deposit one check. He is driving a separate vehicle, hoping to rendezvous outside the barbershop.

11:50am- Mom calls Dad to assure him that it is not possible for him to return from the orchard by 1pm. He feels cheated but, as he is still in a barber chair, is powerless to stop us.

12:40pm- We arrive back from the orchard to find Dad placing a white Obama bumper sticker on the white pick-up. The matching? No coincidence. Dad suggests that between two planned horserides, we jump off a rope swing fixed to the underside of the I-94 bridge over the Black River. I question him on the relation of this rope swing to things I have failed to jump off in the past. He assures me this is a 'step down' from those things. I agree.

12:45pm- Mom confesses to Dad that her achilles tendon is inexplicably sore. After a full line of professional questioning, Dad wraps and ices the foot expertly.

1:00pm- 5 guests show up to ride my parents' horses. Dad must saddle the horses and host a horseride with several novice riders. Dad does not let the angst of beginners get to him. The ride is a resounding success. Casualties are limited to a banged crotch and a sideache.

2:30pm- Dad drives the two youngest riders home and stops by the hospital to pick up recuperative trappings for Mom's leg.

3:30pm- Dad fits Mom with a walking cast. He agrees with Mom that horseriding would be considered 'taking it easy.' They are the only two people in the world who believe this. I tell Dad there is no time to jump off the rope. 'No time' is not a phrase my dad understands. He asks for a reprieve.

4:00pm- Dad folds a load of laundry.

4:15pm- Dad speed reads Entertainment Weekly. This publication accounts for 90% of his exposure to pop culture.

5:00pm- Mom and Dad go on a horseride totaling 7 riders, including Jon and myself. They rejoice at the successful cramming of Mom's enormous foot into a stirrup. This ride is also a resounding success. Two near wipe-outs. No official casualties.

6:30pm- Dad believes that we still have time to jump off the rope. I agree, only because I have narrowly averted catastrophe on the horseride. The cards seem stacked in my favor.

6:35pm- Dad feeds Muggles.

6:45pm- We pick up one of Dad's buddies to join us. Mom and Jon are along for the ride.

7:00pm- Dad leads us through someone's backyard to arrive at the jumping off point. He swims into the freezing water to retrieve the rope. He pretends it is merely cool.

7:05pm- We take turns jumping off progressively higher rocks. I enter Dad's world for a brief moment. Each feat provoking another, bolder feat. Dad proceeds to outdo even himself by climbing to the highest possible jumping off point, rope slack in his hands. I almost pee my pants (his shorts, to be exact) watching him. It is moments like these that make it difficult to think of my dad as a human being.

9:00pm- Dad watches 'The Diving Bell and the Butterfly' with us while waiting for dinner to come out of the oven.

11:00pm- Dad must call my sister in California to recommend the movie. Unable to contact her, he must call her husband with the same recommendation.

11:15pm- Dad picks up a letter off the kitchen table asking for a charitable donation. He will donate when Mom is not looking.

11:30pm- I confess to Dad that I cut my toe in the morning and it looks infected. He pulls out the special goggles and agrees.

11:45pm- Dad presents me with antibiotics left over from Mom's ingrown toenail.

12:00am- Dad heads to bed with Mom and Muggles, musing on things left undone.

12:05am- Dad and Muggles snore in beautiful harmony.

homewards

Jon and I are vacationing in Black River this weekend. I truly think of it that way even though it's a visit home. Jon probably thinks of it somewhat differently. But he secretly loves the animals. I will often encounter him cuddling something.

jon with baby horse

jon with pippin

Mom has taken to spoiling me when I go home. Baked goods, coffee with whipped cream on top, going to movies, trips to the all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet, bags of apples to take back with me, and vivid bouquets from her garden. Not to mention that I am often party to an adventure that requires a great deal more courage than city life ever asks of me. I love going home because it forces me outside my comfort zone, then rewards me with pie.

best buttercream

Here is the recipe I use for buttercream.

In a saucepan, boil 1/2 cup water and 2 1/4 cups sugar.

When it begins to boil, set timer for 7 minutes. With two minutes remaining (after 5 minutes), whip 1 cup egg whites at high speed. They should be stiff when timer goes off.

Slowly add the sugar syrup to the egg whites while mixer is on high speed. Avoid pouring directly on the whip. Beat until the bowl is cool to the touch, about 10 minutes.

Slowly add 6 sticks butter cut into 1-inch chunks (I use salted, though it calls for unsalted). As the buttercream firms, reduce to low speed and add 1 tsp vanilla. Beat until light and fluffy.

This recipe is from The Whimsical Bakehouse in Ithaca, NY. I have made it many many times. I have been asked for the recipe more times than I can count. While I have never completely botched it, the degree of success varies. I feel compelled to warn that the 10-minute approximation in the recipe is completely bogus. When pouring the sugar syrup into the beaten egg whites, the mixture becomes so incredibly hot that 10 minutes of beating on high speed is nowhere near enough time to cool the mixture. 20 minutes is a better ballpark. I also cheat on the side of cool butter to aid in the cooling process. When my trusty pink KitchenAid fails me, I will have this recipe to blame. I recommend making a whole batch every time. You can freeze it for up to a month. Or longer, but I feel morally obligated to err on the conservative side. When baking, not voting. Bell's palsy my ass. I can't figure out which is worse: a president who isn't afraid to make a fool of himself speaking in public or one who is.

figs and debranding

Today someone at work asked me what I did over the weekend. Usually, I can answer this question without pause for good reason. I spend almost 50 working hours a week dreaming about the weekend and all the things I will do. When given the opportunity to talk about it, I will. But today, I found myself saying aloud, 'hmmmm...what did I do this weekend?' I mumbled something about reading a lot, which I did. Then complained about the summery weather, which it was. It was only hours later (hours spent primarily dreaming about next weekend and all the things I will do) that it hit me. 'Oh yeah! I debranded the kitchen cupboards.' See proof.

Exhibit A

This project is in the running for my most pointless endeavor (not counting certain aspects of my job). I know this because at the end of it all I justified the task by saying to Jon, 'well, at least I honed my manual dexterity.' For me, that is the last line of defense. Pleading manual dexterity. Last week I had been staring into the cupboards at my previously debranded vinegar and oil bottles and it hit me that I could debrand everything. On Friday, I half-heartedly began the project. It involved removing labels that were never meant to be removed from anything I could get my hands on. In no time, I became compulsively driven to finish the project. This took much longer than expected. It involved a lot of Goo-Gone and razor blades and gummy residue from bottles being painstaking removed before depositing itself elsewhere. Namely, on a nice skirt I was too lazy to change out of and everywhere in the apartment via the bottoms of my shoes.

Jon was very supportive. He complemented the end result at some blurry point on Saturday afternoon that I can hardly recall. I was delirious from Goo-Gone and taste-testing unmarked spices. Paprika vs. cayenne. Easily solved. Cloves vs. nutmeg vs. allspice. I'll be damned. I guess I take those three for granted. I almost had to call Mara to bail me out with her bloodhound reflexes and culinary aptitude. But I did not want to admit to her that I had no idea which bottle was coriander. This could possibly have ended our friendship. I finally figured it out by process of elimination and the Law of Conservation of Mass.
i.e. I could have sworn there was coriander here somewhere

sound advice:
If you ever get the urge to debrand your kitchen cupboards, just shut them. I, on the other hand, plan to never close mine.

Jamie's birthday

Happy belated birthday to my little sister, with love.

born again levis

Jon wore a pair of his favorite levis to death recently. He was lamenting over the fact that he couldn't make them into shorts, crotchless shorts being no more acceptable than crotchless jeans. I said I would make a hat out of them- the chorus of my recent life. This is not unlike a small child grabbing for the hot burner a seventh time. But Jon had the good sense to mask his true sentiments and let me make a hat. It turned out less goofy than usual. I sewed a beltloop to the back of it, to hang it by.

And, since I was feeling resourceful and the deconstructed gray denim was so inspiring, I made Dosha. He has a beltloop sewn to his back also. I would like to believe future children will be born with a similar feature. Not to hang them by...necessarily. I also cut out the cotton pockets of the jeans and turned them into protective sunglasses cases. And I took a few scraps to cover buttons with to adorn my convertible shoes.

Swisha and Dosha

Check out Martha's repurposed denim rug .

in memory

catch up

Sounds like catsup.

I am determined to bring my blog up to date in one fell swoop. No pictures, as Jon has my camera. He saw a raccoon sleeping on the windowsill on his way to work today and had to document it.

8.23
discovered faux denim Xhiliration brand stretch pants at Target. Secretly fell in love with them but did not buy them.

8.24
talked to my sister, Jamie, on the phone, must have talked too much about faux denim stretch pants- her closing words to me were 'just buy the stretch pants!'

8.26
stopped by Target en route to meet Gretchen for the State Fair, bought faux denim stretch pants

8.28
made cream cheese pound cake with recipe gleaned from my super flamboyant high school music teacher, ate requisite giant spoonful of batter

8.29
served miniature pound cakes as strawberry shortcake on a stick in honor of the state fair, vowed that I would quit my job if co-workers did not get the joke, then proceeded to let them in on it
i.e. called my own bluff

met Mara for lunch at Quang, got my favorite steamed pork bun,
Mara introduced me to the Friday sea bass soup

8.30
went to downtown public library, checked out 3 DVD's and a book called Design and the Elastic Mind based on the recent MOMA exhibit curated by Paola Antonelli, discovered an art magazine called Art on Paper that I am determined to buy the August/September issue of, this publication is not sold anywhere in Minneapolis.
In the words of Garfield- AAARGHHH!

8.31
finished sewing a hat out of a pair of Jon's old gray jeans, this project was half-finished and sitting on the table for 3 weeks, landmark moment as hat actually fits- 1 for 7 on hats so far, also made Eujean but stopped short of a mouth

9.1
Jon's eagle calendar reveals yet another eagle. Sale at Savers!! I scored an almost new J.Crew wool blazer. Jon found more ironic XXL t-shirts. Two words: Tazmanian Devil. It takes a certain ego to pull that off.

9.2
Cocktails at La Bell Vie with Mara. The best cocktails in Minneapolis. My martini was like a salty caramel for vodka lovers. Garnished with toasted marcona almond-stuffed olives. A world of thumbs skyward in praise of this. Spoke fondly of faux denim stretch pants to Mara.

9.5
Home to Black River Falls. Fall has arrived! Got in after 11PM. Mom greeted me with a meatloaf sandwich and a slice of pumpkin pie with fresh whipped cream. Dad once again christened it 'the best pie mom's ever made.' It was so awesomely good.

9.6
Hung out with Mom and endeavored to make best scones ever. They were very good. But not the best scones ever. Somewhat cakey. I guess scones are a subjective thing. I like my scones humble and crumbly and surprisingly rich. This is how Jamie likes her men.

Attended Catholic mass with Mom to watch Dad sing. No one in my family is Catholic.

9.7
Horse ride with my high school science teacher. He kept confusing me with my more successful older sister. I rode Mom's new Tennessee Walker. She calls it Poner. The name makes me cringe. It's name used to be Goldie, so I stubbornly adhere to that. Goldie has a 6-week old baby that ran willy-nilly in front of Goldie on the trails in the woods. Mom made burgers and brownie sundae's. 8 kinds of Haagen Daaz/Ben & Jerry's. Mom and Dad think this is normal.

9.8
Asked Jon if he thinks I should buy faux denim stretch pants for my older sister. He fails to comment. I have yet to wear mine.

9.9
Baked an apple pie. Bought Butter Pecan ice cream to accompany it. Noted that Edy's has changed their package size from 14 servings to 12. This is good for me because I tend to polish it off in 24 hours, regardless. Bring on the skinny 'jeans'.

9.11
Seven years since the collapse of the twin towers. It feels like longer. Like a different lifetime. I find it encouraging because if 7 years can feel like a lifetime, I would only have to live to be 63 to feel like I've lived nine lives. Weird, but encouraging. Mostly weird. More than that- seven years is defeating. Because there is a war still raging that we insist on ending in something called victory. No one even knows what that means.

9.12
Met Gretchen with her work friends for a happy hour at Restaurant Max. Two separate factors contributed to a lower than average self-esteem. Being grossly underdressed and furtively eating beef jerky on the bus en route to the swoiree. Delicious burger at Ike's afterward.

9.13
Bought International Cafe Mayan Dark Chocolate. If Wal-Mart were a coffee, it would be this drink. Cheapened myself by drinking it.

Plan to see Burn After Reading with Jon. He does not know this.

Hope to drive my parents' minivan to the craft store to buy eyeballs for stuffed animals.

One or both of these things will not happen.

much anticipated radish

Here is radish on his first night as radish man. I will not show you radish man in his present state. It will ruin your day. I took a good long look at radish man, then passed the mirror and found two new laugh lines. Not funny.