Adventures in the Pointless Forest

Oh, hello.

...I didn't see you there. Oh, that's right, it's because I've been looking the other way for the past oh dear God two and a half years. That might explain it. You may have noticed that in the interim, everything in the world at large became extremely horrible. I'm not saying it's my fault, exactly; I'm just saying it's not 100% obviously not my fault. Mistakes were made.

Anyway, in the spirit of fiddling while Rome burns, here are some of the things I have been up to in this darkest timeline:

1. Growing sunflower shoots in our spare room, because I feel the need to be more in touch with my inner hippie and also because as unappetizingly, macrame-ish-ly wholesome as they may sound, they are actually delicious. Also because if you want to waste many hours on the internet without fear of wandering accidentally into the abyss, you could do a lot worse than opting for the cozy rabbit hole of the exceedingly detailed, beautifully photo-illustrated, compendious material available at sproutpeople.org. And then you might find yourself placing an order for some sprout supplies yourself. Or not, because you're not me. Who can say!

2. Drawing pictures of our new cat, whose name is Sardine, and who is quite insane, as kittens tend to be, in varyingly plausible situations. Like this.

The pictures go in Jane's lunchbox. 

The old cat, Nemo, died a while ago. Sorry I didn't tell you. Even though his most notable habit at that point was pissing on things, we were still sad, so it took some time before we were quite ready to begin again. But time did pass and now here we are with a lovely, deranged, floofy-tailed cat beast. 

3. Grading. So much grading.

4. Waiting for various academic publishers to contemplate whether or not they want to publish the book (!) I went and wrote. No, no, sit back down, it is not the exciting sort of book that features spies or romance or offworld exploration or dragons or dystopian teenagers or cats. It is the boring sort of book that features things like "referring expressions" and "presupposition."

5. Making caramels. Again! I may have failed to keep up with blog writing, but I remain faithful in my caramel making. Would you like to hear more about my caramel making? Well, whether you would or not, now you will! Anyway, the lovely Annette wrote and asked me about them. Perhaps I will tell you more about what I learned this time around after I've done it. But in the meantime, here is what I intend to do, based on prior experience:

Get out my 3-quart (actually a 3-liter! it's English) heavy saucepan, and another saucepan to heat the cream in. Prepare an 8" square cake pan by lining it with nonstick (important! though parchment would also do) aluminum foil. Then take:

• 360g cream
• 135g butter (salted)
• 270g sugar
• 35g corn syrup or glucose syrup
• scant 1/4 t. baking soda
• scant 1/2 t. salt

...and get it all lined up and ready to go. Heat the cream, butter and salt together in the lesser pan to melt the butter, then take that pan off the heat.

In the larger pan with plenty of headspace (everything will bubble up quite a lot, later), dry caramelize the sugar and corn syrup together, but not too dark, just a light clear butterscotch color.

Now add the cream, and the baking soda. OH LOOK THAT'S VERY HOT AND BUBBLY.

Cook to 248-250 degrees F (what is this nonsense, grams and Fahrenheit in a single recipe? yes, sue me.) If it doesn't get this hot it will have COLD FLOW, which is to say that it will abandon its shape at room temperature. Too much hotter and it will be too firm. Pour it into your prepared pan, set the pan on a cooling rack, and let cool COMPLETELY, i.e. overnight. Which for me means putting it in the attic so the cat doesn't destroy it, yes. Consider fridging it up a bit the next day before cutting; I won't need to because the attic is already fucking freezing.

And that's what I'm doing tonight, I guess! Twice, probably. How about you?

Now we know.

Jane sang a song today about her toy fox, Foxy, prompted by an earlier discussion regarding the difference between a cow and a bull:

I am a girl with a penis
Girl with a penis
E I E I O
Also a butt.

And how are you?

It's a lady carrot.

The most depressing day of the year! Allegedly. 

It was not too bad, here, though we've all had better ones. We slept extremely poorly last night. Poor Jane spend most of the night wailing and sobbing in our bed, and could not explain why. I kept asking her if something hurt, but she just seemed confused and inconsolable. Then whenever she would drop off for a moment, Steve would have a coughing fit. It was quite something.

In the morning, she was tired and feeble (as were we) and generally a little inclined to dissolve into tears (we managed to refrain), but otherwise okay. Since Steve and I both had the day off, we wanted to do something a little interesting, but in the face of the cold weather and the no sleep, not too interesting. So we went to "Asiatown," as Cleveland's not-really-a-chinatown calls itself, and did a little grocery shopping and let Jane gape at the tanks of live tilapia. One thing we bought was a bulbous carrot. 

"Why that carrot have a nose?" Jane inquired. "Let's give it eyes. And feet." So we did.

You will be glad to know that Jane was pleased by the results. "I like this carrot," she said. "It's a lady carrot. I like him."

Halloween, Voting Day, Falling Back

Traditionally I am a big hater of the return to Standard Time, because it is depressing when the sun sets in what becomes more and more the middle of the afternoon, but traditionally I have not had to get up in time to have a relaxing breakfast while also wrestling a small child into her clothing and getting her out the door to preschool, and... actually it is kind of magnificent how much easier it has been to wake up in the mornings this week, so I may be revising my opinion on this matter. Also, Halloween was delayed around here until Sunday on account of Hurricane Sandy, which meant that the time change put the entire window of trick-or-treating after dark, which is how it should be.

—a pause here while I go and vote. Boy, there sure were a lot of judges and things on the ballot, and there sure were a lot of stations to visit in that process. But at last I have my "I Voted" sticker (actually an "I [Ohio as grossly deformed heart] Voting" sticker), which is of course the real point of the whole endeavor—

Anyway, trick-or-treating was pleasantly after dark. I am of the view that Halloween should be dark and thrilling and spooky, with friendly lit houses. If it is a weekday, your parents go to work, and then they come home, and then you have dinner which is pumpkin soup or something, and by then it is good and dark out, and you go, and then you come back and sort all your loot. Or you can have the dinner in between loot sorting and jumping up to give out candy to older kids, that works too and is what we did this year. But either way, it's all about a walk in the dark, and candy. And then more sorting and trading, until eventually your parents say "It's late and it's a school night, so get it together," and you go to bed kind of costume encrusted, the end.

What you do before it gets dark, of course, is take pictures:

One day, Ratty, all this will be yours.

"I pat the bread? I love you, bread."

I was a witch, to go with. I felt that Steve should go as a broom, but I didn't feel it so much that I made him a costume to that effect. Oh well, he was a broom in my heart. Or something. What about you? Any brooms out there?

All this time, and this is what I come up with?

I'm sorry, have we met? 

Since I last wrote anything, we bought a house and moved 3/4 of the way across the country and I started a new, tenure-track job. Gee whiz! And as of this weekend, we have actually unpacked every box, down to the last picture frame, which is something we didn't manage to do either of the last two times we moved.

I miss Santa Barbara, our old place, our friends there, and our routines. I also miss the avocados and my lime tree. But... the new house is large and lovely and belongs to us (!) and Jane appreciates the stairs and the clothesline. We have entertained several houseguests already and expect more, which is very pleasing. We have friends of quality here, too, and there are trains.

In the meantime, Jane's bedtime routine has become rather more elaborate, and now includes a bedtime story to be composed on the fly by yours truly. These vary in their originality (as you might imagine) and have a variety of recurring characters and structural elements. They always end with a scene in which everyone goes to sleep. On a boat, on a train, on the back of an owl -- whatever, the endgame is sleep. Usually they feature Jane herself, as well as Badger and his young ward Hedgehog. A large rotating cast of secondary characters fill in as needed.

This past week she has become VERY into one scenario, known as "The Meeting Story," that consists mainly of major cribbing from the opening chapter of The Hobbit, retrofitted to the general storyworld of her bedtimes. She has demanded it several nights in a row now. Furthermore, now that the storyline is established, instead of having Mr. Badger open the door to guest after guest, it goes about like this:

Me: So just as the kettle was full, there was another knock on the door. Knock knock knock! Mr. Badger...

Jane: [in interrupting-cow style beginning around "knock"] I GET THE DOOR I GET THE DOOR I GET THE DOOR

Me: Okay, you opened the door and there was a whole family of raccoons! And they said...

Interrupting Cow Jane: THEY WANT A TEA THEY WANT A TEA THEY WANT A TEA?

Me: 'Oh, thank you, Jane, we would like some tea! We're here for the mee...'

ICJ: I MAKE A TEA

Me: Okay, so you put the kettle on the sto...

ICJ: I PUT A KETTLE ON A STOVE!

etc.

Eventually Merlin (why not Gandalf? because Merlin had already appeared in a different story, about snakes) comes and tells them that he has called the meeting because they are all going to go on an adventure tomorrow, no, he can't tell them more because he lives backwards, don't you know, and he can never remember whether he is remembering something that never happened or making plans for something that happened last year, so it's best if he keeps it all under his hat, but it will be a fine adventure at which their presence will all be required and there will be a boat on the river to pick them all up for it first thing in the morning, so they had better get some sleep.

Then they pull all the bedding out of the airing cupboards and make up beds for everyone and everybody is so excited they think they will never be able to go to sleep but after all the excitement it turns out that they do, quite quickly, after all, the end.

Well. I missed you! Sorry I've been so delinquent. Maybe I will reform this time. How are you?

Choppers

Last night I dreamed that I went to a new dentist. She was kind of gothy, and her office was not so brightly lit, and decorated with purple drapey things. But that was okay.

Then she told me that she had a giant spider who was going to scrape the plaque off my teeth. 

"A giant spider?" I said.

"Yes, but it will feel kind of like a bunny," she said.

This mini-post brought to you by the letter T.

Hi! We went on a trip, and then we came back. It was great. I had a million great conversations with swell people and stayed up late and ate piles of delicious food. Jane cavorted with doting five- and nine-year-olds, fed delectable brioche to a stinky beagle, and had countless mutually gleeful slapping fights with our hosts' feisty half-grown cat. Steve mostly worked. Poor Steve.

Soon Steve's parents will be visiting us, but I will try to get in at least one real post before then, because I missed you. 

In the meantime, here is a picture of Jane browsing the Times Literary Supplement in my best friend's parents' kitchen:

 

Father's Day delights

I probably should not have let Jane take that empty wipes package to bed with her. Crinkle crinkle. Crinkle crinkle. Crinkle crinkle crinkle crinkle crinkle. Crinkle crinkle crinkle crinkle crinkle crinkle crinkle crinkle crinkle crinkle crinkle crinkle crinkle crinkle crinkle crinkle crinkle wow that really is awfully crinkly. Crinkle.

How are you?

Today was Father's Day. Happy Father's Day, Steve! You will never, ever cause your daughter even a moment of embarrassment.

Later we went down to the beach and made Jane cry by letting her fall on her face in the surf. That was good, because I'd been feeling we were in a rut, not giving her enough new experiences, and falling face down into the vast unforgiving sea was definitely fresh and novel. 

Then we thought it might be nice to form some slightly less traumatic associations with the ocean, so we carried her downshore a bit to observe the natural wonders. "Ooh! Beach wrack! Look! A skate park!" 

(Park Review: "The Santa Barbara Skate Park is a fun spot with a cool layout. It's easy to get speed and there is some fun obstacles to hit like the stairs and the pyramid. This skatepark sits right on the beach so it makes for a good day of hangin out checkin out the hotties while grinding ledges.")

("Do you think Jane will grow up to be a skate rat?" "Well, maybe if we're very lucky, and very, very good.")

Our destination was a bridge where Steve had previously seen a baby raccoon, or so he reported. The plan was to walk to this bridge, stand on it, observe the lack of a baby raccoon, and return home.

So imagine my infinite delight when we arrived at the bridge and looked down into the—I don't know, actually, what you would call it: a sort of walled trench with water at the bottom—and saw multiple families of adorable California ground squirrels frolicking about. Lots of them were bitty little juveniles, who chased each other up and down, cuteness pouring off them in waves.

We spent five gleeful minutes admiring their quick-moving tiny completeness, although Jane, recovering from the torments of the Pacific, remained sweetly oblivious. The squirrels, no longer babies but not full-sized, popped in and out of their burrows in the sand-and-rock walls, occasionally chittering to one another. If only we spoke squirrel, we could surely have heard, "Check out this ledge grind" and "Major hottie at nine o'clock" and "Daaaad! Please! Go back in the burrow and pretend you don't know me."

A series of messages from Steve

1. 

2. HELLO

3. I AM A LOUISIANA PANCAKE BATFISH

4. I LIVE IN CAVES

5. WILL YOU BE MY FRIEND

6. I WANT SNORGLES

7. IT IS LONELY IN CAVES

8. I TRY TO MAKE FRIENDS

9. BUT I DON'T KNOW HOW

 

 

 

I said yes. (I suggested that it might consider wearing sunglasses, though.)

Minutiae.

As I type, Jane is entertaining herself here and there around the room. She has been experimenting with standing unsupported, and this morning took an actual step. However, her favorite mode of locomotion is a very purposeful striding about on her knees, like an exceptionally short-legged matron in tweeds marching across the countryside. This is very practical of her (like a tweedy matron), as it provides all of walking's freedom to carry things, with at least twice the stability. 

Steve has pointed out that she is also like a Roomba: Earlier she picked up a DVD box and carried it briskly across the room, where she fetched up in a corner. There she stayed, happily clutching the box, facing the corner and wiggling a little.

Just now, she seems to be on a mission to take everything rectangular and move it one quadrant of the room counter-clockwise. Then she goes back to the first one and begins again, with an occasional pause to menace the cat.

Though, really, to be fair, the cat is at least as responsible as she is for any menace he may feel. Her modus is to approach the cat with expressions of glee and outstretched hands, while he stands perfectly still and complains. Then she stops with her fingertips a foot or so away from his person. "Yeeee!" she says. He looks more and more affronted and objects vocally with increasing volume, but will NOT by god leave. It reminds me of the video of the cat being terrorized by a turtle, which made the rounds a year or two ago, this one:

 

It is not that Jane is behaving like the turtle, what with her gracious respect for Nemo's personal space, but that that both cats show an incredible failure to use their actual advantage in the case and just go away. 

Eventually Jane knee-thumps off to other things and the cat goes on complaining until we point out to him that she is now as far away from him as it is possible to be while remaining in the same room, and then he pretends that he was asking to be let outdoors, all along. Then, I'm sure, he goes and thinks about how he wishes that Jane were a Roomba, so that instead of being grumpy and beleagured here in the present, he could be the happiest cat of 2008.

  

Maybe he will learn to ride her next year.