Suzy Says

The library board’s annual meeting falls on the second Saturday in January. I’m not sure how or why this was decided, but presumably the decision was made by persons who do not live in Hooterville, do not work full time in the Big Town and do not drive 250 miles a week to do so. Pretty much the last thing I want to do on any given Saturday is get in the car and trek to the Big Town, especially if I am required to give a speech, which I am at the annual meeting.

Others may not agree with me, but I was glad to do the annual meeting by Zoom, since I didn’t need to leave home. Despite having to appear on camera – it is basically impossible to run a meeting by phone – I didn’t bother with make-up, and I wore regular weekend clothes. The library board is used to seeing me in full faux adult armor, since I either go to the meeting from work or Zoom from my office.

No one commented on my relaxed look – I did brush my hair! – and I did the Zoom meeting outside on the deck in the full glare of the sun that day, since the boys were doing something noisy inside. The only outlet on the back porch is located in a place where I had to sit facing the sun. I was so suffused with sunlight that my features were basically indistinguishable, which was fine with me.

After two years as the board president, I decided it was time to step down from my lofty office. They had never had a board president who worked full time before, and I’m here to say there’s a reason for that. It was too much responsibility on top of my demanding job, which has only grown more demanding lately*. I also think two years is a long enough term, though there are no term limits. A project for this year is revising and updating the bylaws, and perhaps this is one of the items that could be included.

I felt that I left on a high note. We had finally gotten the decrepit house next door torn down to make way for eventual expansion of the library. The demolition included salvage of some first growth redwood which can be used in the new building, and the project was handled sensitively and well by a local craftsman. On the last day of the old year, I received word that the library was the beneficiary of a patron’s estate to the astonishing tune of $470,000, a wonderful way to end the old year and start the new.

I will stay on the board but will be glad of the reduced time and duties needed. As when reading a good book, I am looking forward to what happens next.

*The finance person at work recently told me that I worked more hours last year than any other hourly employee, so I’m not imagining this.

A YEAR AGO: An in person annual meeting at the library.

FIVE YEARS AGO: I wouldn’t be Me if I weren’t having car trouble.

TEN YEARS AGO: A beautiful day.

Lately Danielle’s cat Kiki has been around more, often in the early morning darkness, which does a creditable job of impersonating midnight. Her white fur shows up against the darkness as she slinks around from the front door to the side deck off the kitchen to the back door.

I’m not sure if her visits are because Danielle is in Hawaii and she is lonely, but I always wish I could pet her. I don’t want to encourage her visits, since I’m always afraid that one of my cats will get into a fight with Kiki. After persuading Danielle to let me keep my cats, it might be hard to get her forgiveness if one of my cats scratched her cat. The time that Audrey escaped, I narrowly averted a catfight by removing Audrey from the scene. My next-door neighbor (and Danielle’s son) Alex told me that Dodge had wandered over the last time he got out and Alex shooed him away to avoid a fight.

I think Dodge is still interested in the fight, though. Whenever Kiki appears, he is the first to run to the door where she is. This morning, they were growling and at each other and basically fighting through the glass. They fought through the kitchen window screen so much that the screen was destroyed (Rob just hauled the sad remains to the dump last weekend). At some point, I will have to replace it. I am hoping that Rob’s Robness will come up with window screens that are Dodge and Kiki proof. It would be great if so. I’d love to be able to open the bedroom windows on summer nights once things have cooled down, knowing that Dodge could not tear the screen out and jump down. It may be a lot to ask, even for Rob.

I wonder if Dodge is just more territorial from living on the mean streets of the Big Town. Or maybe it’s just his youth and nature? I’ll never know, but I will have to be extra careful to keep him as far away from Kiki as possible, even when she stops by for a visit.

A YEAR AGO: Assuming office is not without its challenges.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Lots of travel for Megan and Rob. So far, he has managed to avoid more surgery.

TEN YEARS AGO: There’s always something blooming in and around Hooterville.

Most of the year, I set off for work in the darkness. There might be three months or so when this is not the case. If you don’t live in the country, it will be hard for you to understand how very dark the darkness is. There is no ambient light, so the stars, moon, and planets blaze in the black sky. If there’s no fog and a full moon, when I arrive at the junction of work (the highway) and home (the Ridge), where I first see the ocean, there is a glorious silver trail of moonlight across the dark water, a sight I never get tired of seeing.

Between the reflective paint and the cats’ eyes on the highway, the first of the nine bridges I cross to get to work looks like an airport runway. I am always surprised by how much traffic is heading south, away from the Big Town. Where are they going? To Santa Rosa? To the City? I am often the only car heading to the Big Town in the morning, sometimes until I reach the outskirts of the Village or even the town itself. To be fair, I leave the house somewhere around 6 am on work days.

Crossing the Big River bridge, with its long curve, I always breathe in and try to take in its special energy. There’s something magical about that place, an estuary where the river meets the ocean. It’s so beautiful.

As I approach the Village, I can see the flash of the lighthouse at Point Cabrillo, site of the wreck of the Frolic in 1850, which led to the settlement of the area as scavengers searched for the ship’s rich cargo, but discovered redwoods instead, the beginning of the area’s settlement and the beginning of the lumber business that is still economically important. The lighthouse was later immortalized in the delightful movie The Majestic. You can still tour the lighthouse’s magnificent Fresnel lens a couple of times a year, and the lighthouse pretty much any day. It’s worth a visit.

Recently, I realized that going to work in the darkness isn’t really anything new for me. When I lived in the City, I worked market hours, which meant getting to work when the New York Stock Exchange opened, at 6 am Pacific time. I walked from my Jazz Age condo in Pacific Heights to my sky high office building in the Financial District. To get there, I walked through the Tenderloin, which is still, in this age of gentrification, a little on the sketchy side.

In those days, and at that time of day, night met day like the river meets the sea at Big River, though with perhaps a little less magic and poetry. I’d see people making their way home after a night of serious partying, or heading home after a one night stand while others, like me, were on their way to work. Sex workers were out in full force, and I was surprised by how much business there was at that time of day. It seemed odd to me then and odd to me now that men on their way to work would pick up a hooker instead of (or perhaps in addition to) a coffee. Sex is pretty much the last thing on my mind on my way to work and at work, but then, I am not of the male persuasion.

Now, instead of worrying about homeless people or being grabbed on my way to work, I worry about hitting a deer or maybe driving off the Ridge in the fog. You never know what you’ll find in the dark, whether you live in the country or the city.

A YEAR AGO: Not much rain then, either. Maybe it’s not all that surprising I ran out of water.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Noticing the magic moments in everyday life.

TEN YEARS AGO: Beginning to feel a little better.

Welcome rain

I ignored the arrival of the New Year and the departure of the old one, even though I was equally happy to see the old one leave and the new one arrive. I hope my being a bad hostess doesn’t mean that 2021 will be worse than 2020. The sequel is so often worse than the original.

The new year did bring us some much-needed rain. We are at about half of what we should have for this time of year. Although I live in a water tower and my landlord Danielle assured me that they had never run out of water on this property, even in a drought, that is what happened recently.

Danielle is in Hawaii, so that left her son and my neighbor Alex to deal with the water issue. He primed the pump and did other things that are beyond my extremely limited ability to understand, and although I needed to use bottled water for one day, the water did come back. It never occurred to me to have buckets at the ready, like I used to at the old house, and hopefully it will still not be necessary. I’m glad I had the bottled water leftover from the nightmare of the PSPS, though.

As I drove across the Salmon Creek bridge on New Year’s Day, I saw a rainbow hovering above the old Ridge, and I like to think that was a good omen for the year ahead. I got the vaccine on the first working day of the year, and that seemed like a good omen, too. I hardly felt its application, and have suffered no ill effects so far. I have not turned into a pumpkin or a werewolf, and my arm doesn’t even hurt, as I had been warned.

Here’s hoping that the New Year is kinder to all of us. Or, as a wise friend put it, “Happier New Year to you.”

A YEAR AGO: Welcoming the new year. Little did I know.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Starting the year with a power outage.

TEN YEARS AGO: Putting away the decorations for another year.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Recapping 2005.

Looking back on the year with 2020 vision…or 2020 hindsight.

I made a decision to keep this space free of politics and other unpleasantness. As usual, with any decision I have ever made, I am not sure I made the right one. I work at a medical clinic and could have written about what it was/is like to work in a medical clinic during a pandemic, but I don’t want to write about work and I am too frivolous for such serious topics. Also, I like keeping everything ugly at bay. This is my safe (and sparkly) space, for better or for worse, for shallower or shallower.

Despite enjoying escapist fare such as children’s books (the wonderful E.L. Konigsberg and E. Nesbit) and Agatha Christies, as well as re-reading classics like The Catcher in the Rye and the works of the divine Jane when there was no library access, the total of books read by the local library chairperson was a paltry 86, not much of an improvement over the embarrassing 82 recorded in 2019. I greatly enjoyed Elton John’s memoir, Peter Swanson’s Eight Perfect Murders, Ruth Ware’s One by One, Connie Schultz’s The Daughters of Erietown, and Alex North’s The Whisper Man. As usual, Stephen King with If It Bleeds and Michael Connelly with Fair Warning and The Law of Innocence did not disappoint.

In addition to comfort viewing (The Rockford Files and Columbo), there were some amazing TV shows brightening my screen on these dark days: City on a Hill, Succession, Escape at Dannemora, Russian Doll, Unbelievable, Perry Mason (the new one; not the classic, which is also wonderful, but very different), The Morning Show, Dead to Me, Dash & Lily, Ozark, Bad Blood, Little Fires Everywhere, Better Call Saul, Emily in Paris, and Get Shorty. If you haven’t seen any of these, check them out. You’ll thank me later.

Other than that, here’s all the news I saw fit to print:

January: A quiet beginning to the new year, with no hangover and no particular plans. My beautiful commute. It still amazes me and reveals new joys. A seemingly endless supply of meetings.

February: The gift of a new cell phone from my sister, who was tired of not being able to text me at home. It took three visits to the Verizon Store to sort of get my data transferred. The nightmare of the kitties. A long story which was entirely my fault, and you know how much I love that. The kitchen sink was full of sewage again, and the power was out. Good times. Sunny days outside and pretty inside. A lovely day. And a lovely dinner.

March: An update on my bosses, the cats. Ignoring the ignominious time change with a look around the family garden. Close encounters with wildlife. In my case, the hare (thankfully) won the race. Remembering my beloved father on his birthday. A night in town. Of tires and take-out. Michelin-starred, no less. the take-out, not the tires (though they could have been Michelins). I was shocked and saddened to hear of my former brother-in-law Mike’s death, but thankful it was a peaceful one at home. Rest in peace, dear Mike. You were a wonderful man and will always be loved and remembered with joy.

April: Michelin starred take-out 2.0. Is it conceited that I prefer my own cooking? Maybe the starriness doesn’t translate well to the take-out genre. Mom? Is that you? The tale of the grandfather clock, more than 250 years and counting (the hours and minutes). Beauty is all around me. My blog turned 19! The differences between my weekday and weekend routines. Adventures in cooking.

May: Welcoming spring. I really enjoyed spring this year. It was so beautiful. The beauty of the season was darkened by the sudden and shocking death of a dear and long-time friend. Randy, I will never forget you or your smile that lit up a room. Some reflections on Mother’s Day from someone who will never be one and who had a complicated relationship with her own. There may be a connection here. Celebrating Dodge’s fourth (or so) birthday. He is such a beautiful, affectionate little guy. Never a dull moment for Megan, at work in the ER. The month ended with the end of the Beautiful Harriet, Megan and Rob’s much-loved 19 year old cat, just two days after Megan’s birthday. Harriet (then called Olivia) made her first appearance on my blog in December, 2001. She was part of our family for a long time and will always be missed.

June: Things were flourishing in the family garden. Of haircuts and hardware stores. A happy birthday for me…and for my beloved Clyde, who turned 10. A nice addition to the bedroom. Remembering the unforgettable Ginger, our childhood dog.

July: Celebrating the Fourth of July and both sides of my heritage. Also Megan and Rob’s 29th anniversary. Here’s to the next 29! Things were shady over at the family estate. Adjusting to a Kindle. I’m still a paper book girl at heart. Rob’s beautiful garden art. A delightful breakfast at the delightful Queenie’s. Some kitty adventures.

August: Things were rocking and rolling in the family garden. I think I did a better job of using produce this year. An unexpected operation for Stella. I’m glad to report she is fine. A lot of sadness in a short period of time in our little town. Time to start cooking with all that produce. The Evil Eighteenth rolled around for the nineteenth time. I was angry this year. I will never get over losing Dad like that. A heatwave, and remembering past summers. Trying to cool down with some icy adult beverages beside the ocean. Hello, darkness, my old enemy.

September: Rearranging the kitchen after my microwave gave up the ghost, as my appliances tend to do. Audrey being Audrey. Rob: always there to make my life better. Happy birthday to my amazing brother, Jonathan. The horror of wildfires. Getting my MacBook fixed, with all the fun that entails. And getting Wednesday repaired. Attacking the Closet of Doom, with Rob’s help.

October: Rob was working hard on the Closet of Doom. It’s still a work in progress. Summer seemed to be endless. A delightful visit with a friend. I hope we can do that again soon. Yet another crown for our princess. My ex John adopted a pregnant stray cat. Meet Willow, Peach, and Daisy (I named Daisy)! Doing some project cooking.

November: A road trip to beautiful Anderson Valley. Problems with the heater. Megan started an exciting new side gig at prestigious Stanford University! An update on Willow and her kittens. Getting my third crown was about as fun as you’d expect. I hope it’s the last one, but fear it won’t be. What would I be like if I had a different name? Trying to find the right blanket was harder than you’d expect.

December: The Christmas tree went up a little early this year. And the kitchen sink needed a minor procedure. Some lights in the darkness. Best friends. Memories of Christmas past. A quiet Christmas.

Thank you for coming along with me on this journey for another year, or staying with me for another year. Here’s to a brighter New Year for all of us!

It was a quiet Christmas this year.

On Christmas Eve, I headed out to Navarro Beach, passing the mill superintendent’s house and Captain Fletcher’s Inn, remembering what a great time Megan and I had at Navarro by the Sea Day a couple of years ago.

Arriving at the beach, I was surprised to find it was much warmer than I expected, and I did not need my hat and coat at all. I wandered the beach:

and enjoyed watching and hearing the waves. I can’t imagine living where it’s landlocked. Watching the ocean brings me peace. When I lived in the City, I walked to the waterfront when I was sad or worried and watched the waves in the Bay. It was always soothing.

I enjoyed the breeze, the cormorants sitting placidly in the water, the gulls shrieking, and the ravens surfing the thermals above the crashing waves. I thought about Dad and how much he loved the ocean, and the astonishing fact that next year marks twenty years without him.

Back home, I did some dinner prep for Christmas Day itself. It was a stripped-down version of our usual feast. I was a bit worried about the ham. Jonathan always takes care of it, and I have no ham experience. Also, both Megan and my good friend A had Christmas ham disasters this year, so I was somewhat concerned that I would follow in their culinary footsteps.

A had suggested a hack for my world-famous cheese biscuits: using the food processor. I whizzed the dry ingredients in it, pulsed in the butter, and poured it into a bowl. I then used the food processor to grate the cheeses, instead of doing it by hand. I tossed the cheese into the dry ingredients with my hands and used a spoon to stir in the milk. They were literally the best cheese biscuits I have ever made, and I will do them this way from now on.

I need not have worried about the ham. It came out perfectly, and was quite small, so I wasn’t inundated with leftovers. Also, no bone to deal with.

To accompany all this, I had our traditional Christmas salad of bitter greens with roasted pears and fresh pomegranate seeds, topped with a shallot dressing:

After dinner, I had sparkling pink wine and opened my presents, which were quite wonderful, ranging from a gift certificate for getting my hair done to a pair of beautiful slate blue gloves from Edinburgh. I watched the Grinch and Charlie Brown and felt like a pretty lucky girl.

A YEAR AGO: A happy holiday.

FIVE YEARS AGO: A festive Christmas.

TEN YEARS AGO: A happy Christmas. Jessica was so little!

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Things were eventful during the holiday season.

Looks like I jinxed my favorite ornament by posting a picture of it. I’m sorry to report that it is no more, just like the favorite ornament Clyde broke a few years ago. We’ll always have Paris?

I came downstairs one morning to find that the cats had knocked over the tree. It looked significantly less festive lying on the floor, even though the lights were still on. Of course, the side with the delicate mercury glass Eiffel Tower ornament was the one that hit the floor. Nothing else was broken. Why are the favorite ones always the victims?

On the bright side, I noticed this weekend that the amaryllis bulbs are beginning to sprout. One seems to have two stems, while the other only has one, so I might have an overachiever and an underachiever again.

A friend reminded me that next week marks the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, and that the days will start to get longer after that. I found that an encouraging idea as I drove to work through the darkness that morning.

This time of year, the historic Little River Inn is lit up, and it gladdens my heart as I reach the crest of the hill and first spot the festive lights blazing in the darkness:

The Botanical Gardens also have a line of lit up, multi-colored stars along the highway, and I look forward to seeing them, too.

Megan got a beautiful little vine shaped like a tree:

It’s so cute!

This time of year, we can all appreciate light(s) in the darkness.

A YEAR AGO: Things were much more sparkly.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Using lights to banish darkness.

TEN YEARS AGO: Trying (unsuccessfully) to get some celebrity dirt. Unsuccessfully. I did manage to finally get country-appropriate footwear, though.

The local message boards have been having fun lately. It all started with a message with “Today’s Date Is?” in the subject line, with nothing in the body of the message. That set off some pretty creative and amusing replies:

1. Today’s date is Medjool.

Medjool is a large, sweet cultivated variety of date (Phoenix
dactylifera) from the Tafilalt region of Morocco, also grown in the
United States, Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Jordan, Palestine.

The variety is planted both for harvesting and for landscaping. The
Medjool is a distinct landrace, described as producing “large soft
fruit, with orange-yellowish flesh, and a mildly rich and pleasing flavor.”

Israel, with its advanced wastewater recycling technologies, currently
owns more than 60 percent of the global Medjool market share, making it
the largest exporter of Medjool dates in the world.

You’re welcome.

2. Medjool dates grow in Dateland Arizona. It’s in Yuma county. I drove thru there on the way to New Mexico from San Diego.

3. It is grown in Mexico too. Especially around Mulege in Baja California

4. By way of our old and dear departed friend Yogi Berra.
Somebody once asked Yogi what time it was. He looked back at the fellow and without skipping a beat replied: “You mean right now?”

5. Time is….of the essence! So I suppose it’s one of those new perfumes at $38 per ounce?

6. Right on schedule!

FIVE YEARS AGO: The heartbreaking loss of Clyde’s brother, the inimitable Roscoe. I will never get over it.

TEN YEARS AGO: Trying to capture sunlight and shadow.

I’m no plumbing expert, or, as you know, even remotely handy, but it was obvious even to me that having a merry little stream rippling out from your kitchen tap was not a good idea.

Rather than try to explain the little brook that had suddenly sprung up, I took a little video of Suzy’s Creek in action and texted it to my landlord, who until she got my text was enjoying a relaxing (and crowd-free) rest at her Hawaiian home.

Being a five hour plane ride away from here did not hinder Danielle’s remarkable efficiency. The next day, she had someone come and inspect it. It was his considered opinion that it needed to be replaced, and when I came home from work the day after that, he was almost done replacing the old with the new.

Being Danielle, the replacement was much nicer than the original. It is now a lovely brushed metal, with matching sprayer.

A pleasant side effect of the upgrade is not having a leak under the sink. The old, leaking tap spilled over behind the sink and then trickled into the cabinet below, making everything wet and probably, at some point, leading to mold and mildew and other undesirable roommates.

Danielle’s fixer guy is planning to come by soon to seal the new tap and sprayer with silicone, and will also seal around the edge of the sink to make sure that is sealed up, too.

I feel really lucky that Danielle is such a great landlord and takes care of things so quickly and efficiently, even when she is more than 2,000 miles away. Sometimes I still can’t believe I live in such a beautiful house.

A YEAR AGO: The ever-amusing local message boards.

TEN YEARS AGO: My beloved Clyde and his brother, the late, lamented Roscoe, turned 6 months old. Five years after losing Roscoe, it still hurts.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Feeling festive. The picture links still work in this post!

I usually put up the Christmas tree the first Saturday in December, and take it down on Twelfth Night, aka the Saddest Day of the Year. One’s house looks so sad and empty once the holiday cheer has been removed, in the midst of the midwinter darkness, to (snow/rain) boot. I do this because it’s the way my parents did it, so I guess that makes it family tradition, even if I am the only one in our rapidly declining family to maintain the tradition.

This year, there was no Thanksgiving*, and the lack of company caused a lack of enthusiasm on my part for cooking anything Thanksgiving-like, even while feeling obligated to do so. I decided to make it minimal, just getting a turkey breast and making a couple of sides. I was unable to locate a turkey breast, other than a boneless frozen one. I had my suspicions, but went ahead with it anyway. It cooked from frozen in a bag and was as delicious as you would expect. In my usual capacity as an Awful Warning, I will tell you all to run like the wind if you ever see a Frankenturkey like that. Get a real turkey, or forget the whole thing. At least my mashed potatoes and glazed carrots were fabulous. I didn’t bother with the traditional cranberry bourbon relish, just making plain cranberries with a dash of orange zest.

Much as I never want to eat Thanksgiving dinner after cooking it – the fun for me is seeing everyone else enjoy it – I didn’t bother making it until the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and I didn’t eat any of it until the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.

My lack of enthusiasm for the Thanksgiving that wasn’t didn’t dampen my desire for Christmas sparkle, though, and on the Saturday morning after what should have been Thanksgiving, I found myself eagerly hauling out the little tree my coworker gave me last year, twining it with lights and adding the snowflakes and glass icicles, as well as the beautiful mercury glass ornament from my friend Erin, my favorite adornment:

It makes me smile to look at it.

I also planted a couple of amaryllis bulbs:

which will hopefully give me some much-needed color in the winter darkness. We shall see.

I’m thinking about getting a wreath for the front door, though it’s hard to hang one up when your front door is glass. Maybe I will find some way to put up lights on the front porch, too. The more sparkle, the better, I always say.

*I really shouldn’t complain, even though it IS one of my super powers. Megan of course worked the Thanksgiving night shift in the ER, which she described as a “shitshow”. Apparently Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July are the worst ER shifts for alcohol and stupidity related incidents.

A YEAR AGO: A happy, if belated, Thanksgiving.

FIVE YEARS AGO: The fabulous Festival of Lights.

TEN YEARS AGO: Dinner with the family.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Christmas in the City.

It was a perfect sunny day – the perfect day for a mini road trip. The sky was a cloudless, deep blue (I always think California skies have a certain depth and strength to their blueness that is special to the Golden State), with that clear, golden light of fall.

As I left the house, I noticed that Mr. Bear has a new technique:

He gets extra credit for creativity, but it’s less effective than his usual method. At least it left most of the trash in the can, instead of spread out everywhere. On the other hand (or paw), there is a bear-induced hole in the garbage can. I really thought he would have moved on by now, but some guys seem to find it hard to let go.

Putting ursine thoughts and destruction behind me, I made my way to the beautiful Valley through the ancient redwood trees. Sunlight filtered through the branches far above as I wended my way to wine country, where the vines were turning red, orange, and yellow, our version of fall color:

This time, I finally stopped to take a photo of this sign, which I have admired for years:

I don’t know who Art is or was, but I love his sign, which I consider to be art.

I headed to the General Store in Boonville, where I ordered a chicken salad sandwich and a lemonade and repaired to one of the wooden picnic tables overlooking the main drag:

I watched cars, people, and dogs go by in the balmy sunshine. It was probably around 80 degrees, a beautiful day to enjoy the warmth of a late fall day.

On my way home, I stopped in at Gowan’s farmstand:

It was brimming with pumpkins, apples, squashes, and other autumn produce:

I picked up some fresh walnuts, almonds, and sweet apple cider to take home with me and remind me of a perfect day in the beautiful Valley.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Oh, Roscoe. You were such a little rascal. I miss you every day.

There’s finally a nip in the air, and I no longer have the fan on in the bedroom at night. In fact, there was a frost warning for the coast and a hard freeze warning inland overnight. The warnings didn’t stop there. Our frenemies at PG&E once again announced that they were planning to cut off power again, just like they did around this time last year.

This time, just like the last time, there wasn’t a breath of wind on the coast and it was chilly, despite the forecast “wind event” and “extremely high temperatures”. At least this time, they only shut off some of the high risk inland areas instead of plunging our entire county into darkness. Even though we only have about 90,000 people, our county is the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined, a large area. And the inland part is very different from the coast in weather and terrain. Fire risk is much higher inland, with its routine triple digit temperatures in the summer versus the coast’s typical 60-65 degrees.

With power at my disposal* over the weekend, I did some project cooking, which was like a little armchair (or ovenside) trip to distant and cosmopolitan Montreal. I made a tourti?re, using a recipe our beloved Ben (born and raised in Montreal) sent me:

And a batch of Montreal-style bagels. They look pretty convincing to me, despite hailing from 3,000 miles away, the wrong country, and not having a wood-fired brick oven:

My boss loves them, so it was nice to bring her some when I headed back to work.

I had originally planned to take a mini trip to Anderson Valley since the weather had finally cooled off, but when the time came, I found I really just wanted to enjoy the small pleasures at home, like sleeping in until it’s light out, drinking coffee in bed with all three cats, and doing some cooking. It was so fun that I’m planning to take this Friday off, too.

*Although it’s a gas oven, powered by platinum propane, it needs electricity to start. The same goes for the only source of heat for the house. See a theme (and a problem) here, in a place where it’s “when” not “if” the power will go out?

FIVE YEARS AGO: The Food Fairy stopped by, bearing a wide array of canned goods.

TEN YEARS AGO: Cold and rainy.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Interesting times in the building I lived in back then, a suitably seasonal Victorian coffin factory.

Summer has been holding on longer than I would like, even into October, when others are flaunting their sweater weather and flaming leaves, and here it’s still sweating weather and flaming forest fires. Even at the Coast, it’s been close to 10 degrees warmer than it should be, even on days that start out with heavy fog. Looking into the long-range forecast, I was disheartened to note an 80 degree forecast for later this week, which, let’s be clear, is the middle of October.

What better way to deal with unseasonable and unreasonable temperatures than a drink with your sister at your favorite seaside bar, where there’s always a breeze and it’s always civilized?

I may have had more than one as we sat on the deck and caught up with each other’s news.

Eventually, we went back to Megan and Rob’s place, where we had wine from her friend’s vineyard:

Appropriately enough, the wine was called Gemini, being a mix of Semillon, not commonly seen here, and sauvignon blanc. It was a smooth, slightly floral blend, and enjoyable to drink. The friend has been evacuated twice during the recent fires, and Megan and another friend made a flying visit to see her, bringing food and hugs. It’s good to have friends.

We sat under the shade sails, quite possibly one of the best investments Megan ever made:

as the sunset gave way to moonrise:

Maybe an endless summer isn’t so bad after all.

A YEAR AGO: My adult impersonation now includes giving speeches.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Hanging out with Lichen.

TEN YEARS AGO: A mini adventure for little Clyde.

I’m pleased to announce that Wednesday and I have been reunited.

I picked up a new battery at the car parts store – well, the nice man at the car parts store picked it up and carefully placed it in the loaner car – and a new headlight, and headed home.

Rob came by and replaced the headlight pretty easily. While the new battery had a handle, facilitating getting its extreme heaviness out of one car and into the other, it was also a bit smaller than the old, handle-less one. Rob looked around and found some wood to hold it firmly in place, and so far, so good.

His quest to make my life better continued a few days later. Rob arrived one Sunday afternoon, armed with tools and shelves for the Closet of Doom. I had kind of thought it would be a few weeks before anything happened. I wasn’t expecting an instant installation.

Here it is in all its Doomish glory:

As you can see, it’s a really awkward space, with one side the slope-y part under the stairs, cut off by the propane heater vent pipe, which makes it impossible to walk back into the slope-y part:

The other side is mostly occupied with the washer and dryer:

The washer takes about 5,000 years to wash anything, and the dryer only allows one to choose between low and lowest, so each load of laundry takes at least three tries to dry. When I moved in, Danielle made it clear that she was not responsible for the quirks of the washer and dryer, so there you (and I) have it. At least I don’t have to trek 25 miles each way to the closest laundromat*.

Rob and I removed all the things and stuff from the closet, and then the existing shelf, which also blocked the light switch so I had to reach behind it to turn the light on and off. Why it’s not conventionally located by the door, I don’t know. All part of the Doom experience!

Up next: After!

*Long ago when I was young and living in the big city, my bijou apartment did not have laundry facilities, so I used to drag my laundry a couple of blocks to the laundromat. Sometimes, I’d go to a nearby strip club to wait for the wash cycle to be finished, since each dance took about the same amount of time.

A YEAR AGO: Car problems were making Wednesday and me a little less than happy.

FIVE YEARS AGO: My last day of working at the jobette. I’d still be doing it if I could. So much has changed.

TEN YEARS AGO: New tile in Megan’s bathroom and new carpet for my sleeping loft.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Bettie Page on the TV and a naked man on the fire scape watching a fire on the building’s roof. You know, the usual.

The monthly Board meetings at work always mean around a twelve hour day for our heroine, so it was both disappointing and ironic in equal measure that this month’s arrived the day after Labor Day. I have started doing them from home, which is a process improvement for me. I leave work around 3:15 pm and get the long drive out of the way in daylight, instead of hitting the long and winding road in the 7:00 pm darkness. And when the meeting is over, I’m already home.

As I drove down the Ridge that afternoon, I could see where the fog at the coast met the smoke from the Oak Fire in Willits, about 30 miles to the east:

My house is nearly 6 miles east of the highway, so I was basically driving toward the fire and smoke, even though the fire was unlikely to reach us through the intervening mountainous terrain. By the time I was set up for the meeting, the light outside was an eerie dark orange. Here’s how it looked from my back door:

Clyde did not like it. During the meeting, he kept going from door to door, looking to see if it looked any less disturbing. It kept getting darker, even though sunset was still hours away. Clyde did not approve of this. He is a sensitive boy, and seemed as perturbed as he did during the moving process last year. He enjoyed the chaos as much as I did, and we were both stressed out by it.

I could hardly wait for it to get dark so I could stop looking at the creepy orange light and get some semblance of normalcy. As the days wore on, the fire was thankfully contained, but the air remained smoky and terrible-smelling. You could see the ash and particulates in the air. We are used to such clean air here, and it was a dramatic and distressing change. The skies stayed orange or brown, dark in the daytime, to the point that I had to have both lights on in my office. I longed to see the sky after a week of not seeing it.

Still, we were the lucky ones, not being evacuated or under immediate threat. This time. I can’t help wondering if it’s like falling off the dock was when my siblings lived on boats at Pier 39, or hitting a deer when you live in the depths of the country: There’s them that has, and them that will. I wonder when it will be our turn to flee for our lives and hope our house isn’t burning to the ground behind us.

FIVE YEARS AGO: The absurdity of “insurance”.

TEN YEARS AGO: Pantry invaders!

It was nice to come home and find Rob there pottering around. This happens less often now that I reside 20 minutes away instead of two minutes away (or less, before Megan and Rob moved to the family estate).

He diagnosed a problem with the hose that had been puzzling me – not, as I had thought, that I bought the wrong size sprayer attachment, but rather, the acidic water at the old place had rotted out the interior threads that the attachment should fasten to. He cut off the rotten end and gave it to me to take to the hardware store. I will get a new one and let the expert install it.

Rob brought a rake so I could rake up the remainder of the bear-related mess:

I put the big stuff back in the garbage over the weekend, but little bits were loitering with intent in the fallen pine needles. I also found a trash annex next to the compost pit. Thanks, Mr. Bear! On the bright side, he has not made his presence known since I sprayed the trash cans with ammonia, nor have I had any bear sightings on the increasingly dark mornings when I scurry to the car.

He also took a look at the Closet of Doom, which is located under the stairs. It is a repository for pantry items, cleaning supplies, shoes, my current handbag, and the washer and dryer. It has a rather challenging shape, since it is under the stairs and one end slopes to the floor. At that end, I have things that I don’t need to use very often, like Christmas ornaments and my father’s letters, which I still cannot bring myself to read nearly two decades after his death, though they are also some of the most precious things I own.

In addition to the steep slope, the propane heater’s stove pipe goes directly through the closet to vent outside, cutting off the sloping side and making access to it even more difficult.

So Rob is going to design some kind of shelving solution which will avoid the pipe and hopefully make the space more usable than it is. I do miss the storage space at the old house. Hopefully Rob can come up with an ingenious Rob-type solution. I got money out of the bank to give him for supplies, and I think I can hear his creative brain whirring as I write.

A YEAR AGO: A culinary adventure.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Celebrating my brother’s 50th birthday. He has now been promoted to big brother. Megan is next in line for promotion.

TEN YEARS AGO: Megan was back at work after recovering from knee surgery, to the joy of her colleagues.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Calamity Suzy once again tests the limits of gravity.

Morning darkness has begun its inevitable descent, and I’m sorry to say that high beams have once again made their appearance, at least for the first part of my drive to work.

Darkness to me is like winter for Canadians. In Canada, you get about 9 months of winter or winter-esque weather, and about three months of summer. Of course, both of these are extremes of cold and heat. Don’t forget the humidity! In my case, there are about nine months of driving to work in the dark, and maybe three months of morning light. Don’t forget the cruelty of Daylight Saving Time! As soon as there is a glimmer of morning light, it is wrenched away from me, and I plunged once again into darkness, blinded by oncoming traffic and praying that I won’t hit a deer.

Arriving at work, I now have to put on my office lights:

I am reluctant to do this, since it signals the decline into darkness. Much as I dream about moving to Alaska, so I will never, to paraphrase Scarlett O’Hara, be hot again, I know I couldn’t live with the darkness of winter there. I would be fine with the cold, just not the endless blackness. When I lived in Canada, I always minded the summer way more than the winter. I used to start dreading summer along about February. I still do.

Along with the darkness, the garbage-seeking bear has made his possibly annual appearance. I think he is drawn by the crabapples that I fail to pick. I used to make crabapple jelly with my American grandmother, picking the fruit from her trees, and it was a beautiful, jewel-like clear red when we were finished. I remember that the actual production made the kitchen pretty hot, and that we sealed each jar with a white paraffin cap. Nana was very proud of her root cellar and preserves, as befitted a former farm girl who lived through the Depression.

She would not be proud of the bear-attracting crabapples or the fact that I just let them fall off the trees and rot (fertilizer!). This year, the bear seems to be limiting his garbage exploration area to right beside the house. Easier to clean up than when he dragged it away to investigate it, but I wonder if this means he feels more comfortable. That thought makes me distinctly uncomfortable. Also the garbage looks quite sordid when it is strewn around the house.

Time to start spraying the garbage cans with ammonia again and hoping that will deflect the ursine invader.

A YEAR AGO: A first attempt at making Montreal bagels. My technique has improved, and I’m now pretty good at it.

FIVE YEARS AGO: A close encounter of the deer kind.

TEN YEARS AGO: Sigh.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Something pretty. You will have to take my word for it, since the photos did not survive.

Megan got very little sleep during the blistering hot plague. It’s particularly difficult to sleep during the day when your bedroom is likes its very own little oven, even when you have just worked twelve fun-filled hours in the ER.

Megan got maybe three hours of sleep, and decided that she was too impaired by lack of sleep to go to work that night. She agreed to be on call, hoping that nothing would happen. Of course, something happened.

A car turning off the highway was rear-ended, and the force of the rear-ending pushed it into oncoming traffic, with predictably unpleasant results. One of the people involved was flown out from the scene and another was brought to the ER to be packaged up and flown out in turn. There was blood and chaos. The road was closed for some time as well.

Fortunately, that was Megan’s last shift of the week, and the next day, she suggested that we go to our favorite seaside bar for a well-earned drink or two.
We sat at the shadiest possible table, right outside the restaurant door, hiding under an umbrella. I was wearing SPF 100, just in case. I’m like a vampire. It’s surprising that I don’t burst into flames upon exposure to the sun. We still had a lovely view of the ocean, though I am sorry to report that it was a completely unreasonable 83 degrees. By the ocean, people. Where it should be 65 with a sweater-requiring breeze.

Although we’re not normally bourbon drinkers, we were unable to resist the blackberry bourbon smash:

It was inspired by the abundance of local wild blackberries. They are muddled and then bourbon is poured over them. The mixture infuses for four days, and when it’s cocktail time, simple syrup, a dash of lemon, and some soda is added. Garnish with mint leaves. It was delicious. I would like to try making it with vodka. Maybe even berry vodka! We could also throw in some of the raspberries from the garden. The cocktail shaker awaits!

FIVE YEARS AGO: Everyone needs a drink after a visit to the dentist. Maybe before, too.

TEN YEARS AGO: It was hot and heinous.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Riding the bus was educational, to say the least.

I took a couple of days off, and you know what that means! That’s right: a searing heat wave! There was an extreme heat warning for Friday and Saturday. And extreme it was. It hit 100 at the family estate and was probably in the 90s at my place, though I don’t have a thermometer or the room temperature readout on the heater like I did at the old place. Sometimes, you’d rather not know.

Despite having an irrational fondness for the old place – In spite of its faults and quirks, it will always have a special place in my heart – I was glad I wasn’t still living there. Its total lack of insulation meant that it was a nightmarish oven, particularly in the sleeping loft, where the heat gathered and loitered with intent. The new house is well insulated and has a water tower on top, which helps to insulate further. So it was (relatively) cool inside while the onslaught of heinous heat raged outside.

I did venture to the Village on Sun Stroke Saturday, though. Usually, I try to avoid shopping on weekends, but sometimes it’s inevitable, and this was one of those times. As I stepped outside, I noticed it was definitely warmer than I would like at 9:00 am, and also that it smelled like summers in Maine, with the sun heating up the pines and scenting the air with the distinctive scent of sap and sun-warmed forest. This was further reinforced as I got closer to the ocean and could smell low tide, which always makes me think of Maine, no matter what the time of year.

Arriving at the rather old-fashioned grocery store, I was lucky enough to park right out front and find that the store itself was delightfully uncrowded. I didn’t even have to wait in line. My shopping style tends to be grabbing what I need and getting the hell out. I later regretted not getting those tangerine popsicles, though. Note to Self: Popsicles are always a good idea. Especially during a heat wave.

As I drove home with surprisingly few cars impeding my summertime progress, I thought of how this shop was quite similar to the Don’s Shop’n Save* in Bar Harbor. Also that the summers that I was nostalgically recalling were half a century in the past.

*It is no longer the Shop’n Save, having been bought out by a chain called Hannaford, but I am pleased to say that Don himself is still around.

A YEAR AGO:Drinks with the girls at our favorite watering hole.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Harvest time.

I think I say this every year, but the Naked Ladies, those harbingers of fall, seem to have arrived early this year:

It’s the canning and preserving time of year, the season that follows the watering and weeding season in the family garden. As usual, I am the work-free beneficiary of my siblings’ labors. Recently, I was gifted with still-warm jars of peach jam:

and pickled onions:

as well as my annual ration of peaches for my yearly peach pie:

Every year, I wish had just a few more to really fill the pie crust, but I can’t complain about free peaches. Oh, wait: I just did. The pie came out great. This time, I used a new recipe for crust from the trusty New York Times. Secret ingredient: Vitamin V (aka vodka)! This is my go-to crust from now on.

The filling was my American grandmother Nana’s style. Like me, she was a “pinch of this, pinch of that” cook. It’s hard to share recipes, since I don’t measure very often and just add ingredients until they look about right to me. For the pie filling, I peeled the eight peaches, cut the fruit off the pits over a bowl, and squeezed some lemon juice into it. In a separate bowl, I mixed together two tablespoons of sugar, a tablespoon of flour, some nutmeg and cinnamon, and then sprinkled it over the fruit and tossed it together. I like to think that my grandmothers and my father live on in the way I cook.

Last weekend, I had a text from my landlord Danielle, asking if I’d like some basil. I said yes, and she appeared with a huge bag of it, fresh from her garden. We chatted for a while, which was nice. I hadn’t seen her since the “inspection” a few months ago, and it was good to feel like our relationship (or coexistence, anyway) is in a good and positive place. I don’t think there is any weirdness left between us, and she did not mention the cats, which was kind of a relief.

After she left, I spread the basil out to dry on my state of Maine tea towel:

That’s summer, right there.

A YEAR AGO: Trying to survive a marathon of work and obligations.