I Know You Are Broke

I Know You Are Broke, a photo by Mary Duan on Flickr.

In 1948, Pat Covici, John Steinbeck's long-time agent, wrote him this letter. Steinbeck had by then "pissed away two fortunes."

You will have to start over, Covici said, and indeed I know you will. "I am groping for something I am convinced you need."

Random Thoughts

1. The last two encounters with my neighbor have ended with me either calling the police, or telling him (after a lot of gesturing and screaming "go fuck yourself" on my part) that if he didn't get out of my face, I was going to call the police. He can treat the rotating cast of screwed-up poohbahs he moves in and out of his house any way he sees fit—it's none of my business—but if he tries anything like aiming his garden hose at my kid's girlfriend again, or verbally harrassing my kids if they're outside playing baseball or walking the dogs, I'm getting a restraining order.

2. Nothing says Happy Holidays quite like a restraining order.

3. Speaking of a lack of restraint, I paid a service an exoribitant amount of money the Wednesday before Thanksgiving to have someone come in and clean the house. It's mostly stuck, or at least it seems to have made keeping it clean a little easier. It might just all be in my head.

4. Which is kind of stuffy right now. The wind had been blowing all week and my eyes have been extra irritated.

5. This is my favorite thing to listen to right now, and the video is also quite charming. My favorite thing to eat right now is a soft pretzel, from the batch Chuck made this afternoon, with mustard.

6. Al the Contractor, the one I believe is in witness protection because he goes by two different last names and I can find no evidence of him online (that's just not normal), recently messaged Chuck and asked him if we had any "before and after" pictures of the house. He can't find the ones he took and he'd like to have some for his portfolio. I'm thinking I might take pictures of the bathroom faucets. The ones where I can only get hot water. Or maybe the kitchen faucet, where I can't get any hot water. Or maybe the light switch in my dining room—the one that's too hot to touch.

I know. First World problems. I'll stop complaining about stupid shit now, I promise.

6. In the spirit of Blackbird and her recent "What I Wore" post, today I am wearing battered yoga pants, a white tank top and a grey cardigan from Target that is spattered with white paint. And Dansko Mary Janes.

Ticking Away

I'm in full-blown not sleeping right mode. It's so wonderfully quiet at night. Nobody is asking questions or demanding anything. I just love to lay here and read and think. Sammy came home from his outing with friends around midnight and announced he hadn't eaten enough vegetables as of late, so i got him some radishes that needed cleaning, and some of the remaining bebe tomatoes from our garden...I would have cut up some carrots and celery if he wanted, but the radishes helped fill the need for crunchy-healhy. He and the puppers went off to bed, Bobby is downstairs on the computer, Chuck is snoring away next to me. If I can get my act together and get some sleep, in the am I'll make them all brunch: scrambled eggs with slivers of smoked salmon mixed in, or with ham. We have biscuits, croissants, some fruit I think.

The snoring, the snoring is setting my teeth on edge .... Chuck is on call all weekend, which means we can't leave the city.
He's going to start baking dozens upon dozens of batches of Christmas cookies instead. His mother's cherry-filled, oatmeal cookie will be one, and chocolate chip of course has to be another. Other than that, he needs a good shortbread, maybe a ginger molasses and maybe a whoopie pie? Not sure.

We're putting our Christmas lists together. I have Chuck's and he wants various kitchen things: some glass measures, some silpats for our new baking sheets, some silicon bowl scrapers and and a new pan. I've asked for a new sweater (this one, http://www.softsurroundings.com/P/Calida_Cardigan/) in grey; a new pair of socks, also in grey, from the cool sock place in SF and a new stash of Nava pencils from PH Design in Texas. I don't really need much of anything, but it's nice to have something to unwrap come Dec. 25.

Monday dinner gone awry ...

Side of the house ..., a photo by Mary Duan on Flickr.

It started with the tomatoes. A little basil, some thyme, a pair of chickens flattened under a brick and Chuck's homemade fries. It ended with my esophagus seizing up about three bites into it. It happens a few times a year, and usually when I'm under great stress--I'll be eating and the esophagus will just stop working. Sometimes I can clear it on my own (you DON'T want to know how) and sometimes I need a trip to the ER following by a surgical procedure in the morning. No ER, but it's going to be a long night.

A Look Around

Some corners of my house. I came home from work Friday, assembled the crew and said, "if I came home and you were all dead I would be embarrassed to call the police because its so messy. So tomorrow we clean." And so we did. A few hours and it's better ... Click on the pics to go to Flickr for actual captions. I'm still trying to figure out the new blogger interface ...

Front hallway, a photo by Mary Duan on Flickr.

Opposite view, a photo by Mary Duan on Flickr.

Dining Room, a photo by Mary Duan on Flickr.

Corner of the dining room., a photo by Mary Duan on Flickr.

Dining room, a photo by Mary Duan on Flickr.

Peace and No Boys Allowed, a photo by Mary Duan on Flickr.

Blackboard jungle

DSCN1318, a photo by Mary Duan on Flickr.

Painted one dining room wall in chalkboard paint... yeah, yeah, I'm a good three years behind trend. But the boys kind of love it and so do we. (My mother-in-law's comment: A chalkboard in a dining room is just not normal.) To the left in the picture is the door that leads into the side foyer; on the other side of the chalkboard wall is the studio apartment, about 700 square feet, with gas fireplace and separate laundry. Flooring is newly installed, frige is new and bathroom is tiled, with a bathtub along one wall, then a separate shower. We hope to find a friendly, gardening-happy and dog-loving tenant by Thanksgiving.

We're happy to provide one of the raised beds we're building so the renter can have his or her own plots. We're thinking about bees and chickens are an almost certainty.
Looking forward to a three-day weekend of movies and reading and sprucing. My managing editor, sensing that I'm a stress monkey right now, suggested I not show up on Friday either, but I think I have too much to do. I'm taking a week off at the end of October and plans are in the works for a night or two in San Francisco. I plan to spend a day in a beach chair on Moss Landing Beach (outside Phil's Fish Market) reading and staring at the ocean.

Mostly, though, I need Blackbird to come to California and help me revamp my wardrobe.

Messy Kitchen

Messy Kitchen, a photo by Mary Duan on Flickr.

Slow and steady...it may not win the race, but it's the only way we're getting anything done around here right now. Slow, as in we're still unpacking boxes and steady, as in hey! we're still unpacking boxes.

Above is a shot of the kitchen. We don't have actual counters (painted plywood for now), no backsplash and no drawer pulls yet. But we have top-notch appliances we bought for pennies on the dollar on eBay and Craigslist, enough space for everyone to be in there and we can pull off some pretty fabulous meals. The cool chicks at Urban Farmhouse have counters in the shop that are made of sheet metal, distressed to make them look like aging zinc and then sealed--they gave me the name of their sheet metal contractor today, and I think we'll probably end up doing the same for our counters. (If you ever get to Salinas and are looking truly unique items at an affordable price, this is the place.)


To the right of where I was standing when I shot the above, there's this:



Rest of the kitchen, the double ovens, the baking area, and then down the little hallway is the laundry room and a storage area. If I ever get it together, our earthquake or zombie apocalypse supplies will go into the storage area. I keep thinking, "Ack, if shit goes down (earthquake or zombies) we are so unprepared."

More pictures tomorrow. Shooting the corners of the house, posting them all ... happy Sunday. Laundry, baseball and maybe some roasted tomato soup and homemade focaccia for dinner.