Suzy Says

One day last week, I picked Rob up from Lu and Rik’s house on my way home from work. Lu and Rik just got engaged after 17 years together, and the wedding is planned for July 2, so there was a lot to talk about before Rob and I loaded ourselves and the dogs into the car.

I waste no opportunity to be chauffeured, so Rob took the wheel. Megan said later how gangsta my black car with its deeply tinted windows looked with Stella the pitbull stereotype in it. The fact that Rob and I are about the whitest people on the planet undoubtedly spoiled the effect.

As we drove along listening to the late, great David Bowie and chatting about this and that (I will never cease to be entertained by the way Rob thinks), Stella slowly but surely oozed her 65 pound self onto my lap. She did this by first peeking her giant head between the seats as if she was just admiring the view* through the windshield, then putting one paw on my leg, then another paw. To be fair, her back legs remained on the back seat with Star, who was curled up neatly, so she wasn’t totally in the front seat.

I had such a great time with Rob and the dogs that I wish I could do this more often. It was the high point of the week.

Later in the week, I picked up Michael, the older gentleman who I am happy to chauffeur whenever I see him and he needs a ride. He usually rides his bike, but he had made a trek to the Big Town that day, which meant walking three miles to the Gro to get the one bus that goes there each day and then getting home from the Gro when the bus dropped him off.

I couldn’t find a place to stop and pick him up when I first saw him, so I drove until I could turn around and go back to where he was. Maneuvering Wednesday’s short turn radius meant that I took up most of both lanes of the Ridge, inconveniencing some neighbors so I could help another. They all took it well, though.

Michael is adjusting to his new-ish place. As he observed, everything has its positives and negatives and it’s more positive not to focus on the negative. I set him down at his little cottage and we parted with a hug and a smile.

When I got home, I found Rob hard at work in the vintage trailer where Rose used to store her pottery equipment. I store non-pottery related things and stuff in there that are damp resistant, and Rob uses it as a workshop from time to time, like he did when working on the bathroom door.

This time, he is working on a beautiful shelving unit to house some still boxed up books in the studio:

Being Rob, there is a cornice on top, the edges of the shelves are beveled, and there are little feet, so it’s more like furniture than just a bookshelf. He even cut out little wood circles to fill in the screw holes so they wouldn’t show. It’s going to look great.

*To be fair, Stella does like to admire the view. She often sits and watches the ocean or observes birds for a long time. I have never known another dog to do this.

A YEAR AGO: Farewell to my friends at the jobette. ~Sob~

At dinner after the woodworking show, Dave and Jennifer surprised us by asking us to join them at the Bolshoi Ballet’s “Taming of the Shrew” the following day. Dave is the kind of guy you expect to see ensconced in his favorite chair, watching football with a beer at hand, but it turns out he is also a guy who enjoys an avant garde production of Shakespeare transformed into ballet. Who knew?

Since we rarely, if ever, journey to Point Arena without a side trip to Anchor Bay for Thai food, we agreed to meet them at the theater. We arrived at the restaurant shortly after it opened:

and ordered delightful things like fresh spring rolls and Panang curry to take home for dinner.

As for lunch, we had enough time to go to the old chowder house at the pier:

where we watched the intrepid surfers plying their daring art in the icy, high tide waters, apparently unafraid of the rocks that lurked just below the surface. It is impressive to watch them ride the rolling waves with skill and strength.

We parked across from the theater and were greeted with deep, hound dog barks. It turned out that we had unknowingly parked right in front of Dave and Jennifer’s car, and their dog was excited to see us. The ticket taker was less than taken with his voice, however. When we bought our tickets, Megan told her that he wouldn’t keep barking after we were out of sight, and she grumbled, “He’d better not!”

Inside, we found Dave and Jennifer ensconced in balcony seats, and we only had a few minutes to spare before the magic started. I was concerned that Shakespeare’s comedy would not translate to ballet with no spoken words, but I need not have worried. Of course, you would have to already know the play for the ballet to make sense, but even if you didn’t understand the subtleties of the story, you would enjoy the beauty and power of the dancing. It was athletic as well as graceful, and even the whisper-thin ballerinas had muscle definition in their arms and backs.

The music was by Shostakovich and the sets were minimal. The costumes delighted my fashion-loving heart:

We all enjoyed it so much, and it was even more fun to share it with our friends.

A YEAR AGO: The latest in a series of storms was merrily toppling trees and, yes, leaving us powerless. The (winter) usual.

I met Megan and Rob after work one evening. They were accompanied by the ever-adorable Star and Stella. In fact, Stella was walking Megan as I came out of the door. Stella was quite interested in going in and seeing what my workplace was all about, but we eventually persuaded her that nothing fun ever happens there.

We stopped at the library for the near-weekly book exchange, and I noticed that it was not pitch dark at 5:30 pm anymore. 5:30 am could learn a lot from 5:30 pm.

In keeping with her former taxi and current parking locating abilities, Megan found a spot just a few steps from Town Hall, where this year’s crop of students were showing their mid-year designs at the Fine Woodworking Show.

We met up with Dave and Jennifer and a maddening crowd. I had never seen the show so crowded. Part of the problem was that it was the opening night reception, and the tables of food were set right inside the doors, creating a traffic flow problem worthy of LA at rush hour.

It was worth fighting through the throngs to see the wonderful art within and talk to the artists. This chair was not only gorgeous, but comfortable:

The artist said that anyone who sits in it, whatever their height and size, says that it’s comfortable. The color of the upholstery was inspired by the sails of the ship which carried her grandfather from China to California many years ago.

This piece looked like a plain box, until it opened to reveal the asymmetric wonder within:

I really enjoyed being with Rob, who knows so much about woodworking and who notices things that no one else does.

We all went out dinner after the show, with the rain sluicing down the windows like a waterfall as we enjoyed our burritos and shouted over the loud music. The food and the company were great, though.

When I got home, I stayed up late reading and was rewarded by a storm-induced power outage. The next morning, I had my phone in my hand to call PG&E for an update on the outage when the power came back on. I rushed around washing dishes and doing laundry while the power shone and the frogs cheerily sang about the rain.

A YEAR AGO: A trip down Memory Lane. One of my favorite places.

Hello from Absurd World, where the Wi-Fi at work hasn’t worked for over a month (wish I could say the same), despite the original estimate from the IT folks of two days. They finally got it sort of working this week, but its tenuous grasp fails a few feet from my office (and the CEO’s). There is no estimate for if or when it will work in the wilds of our work stations. Even though it used to, when my technophobe Old Boss had that office. I imagine New Boss will be less than impressed when she moves into it, especially since she lives on her iPhone.

I spent about a billion hours printing postcards last week for an upcoming fundraising event. In keeping with our technologically challenged theme, you can’t just load up the printer with postcards, enter the number you need, and say Go. It jams almost immediately, so you have to feed it a page at a time, like a particularly querulous baby. Bite-sized pieces. It makes it hard to do anything else, especially when you need to print 400 of them. And that was after I ordered 400 blank postcards from the facilities guy and got 1,000 index cards instead.

Things are still in flux at work. The Old Boss has not finished emptying out her office of more than two decades’ worth of things and stuff to make way for the New Boss to move her two decades of things and stuff into it. The Old Boss has been coming by on the weekends to excavate, and her method seems to be shoveling paperwork from her office to mine. My desk is FEMA worthy on a Monday morning.

New Boss is still doing her old job in addition to her new job, so I am assisting with both and working on the transition, notifying the countless people who need to be notified and filling out seemingly endless forms and gracefully leaping through hoops of bureaucracy. On the bright side, I have not typed up a handwritten document all month. New Boss shares her Outlook calendar with me, so I know where she is and what she’s doing, and we even have a standing meeting on Monday morning to talk about what needs to be done that week. Hopefully she will find someone to replace her and we can get back on an even keel. It would be nice to have a year which is not so full of constant change.

I ended a long day at work by meeting my former co-worker and current friend Richard at a charming oceanside inn’s bar, right in Hooterville. It’s a cozy place for a glass of wine on a rainy winter evening:

We had a great time catching up, and I’m lucky I caught him when I did, because he is off to Mexico and France on business. He’s always going somewhere fabulous or just coming back from somewhere fabulous. Being with him is so fun and inspiring. We should do it more often.

A YEAR AGO: A family dinner.

Good morning! It’s a rainy one, and I’m trying to ignore the wind chimes. Yellow Dog just walked by, on his endless quest for his old friend and playmate, Schatzi. I know how he feels. Part of me is still convinced I might, just might, find my Roscoe waiting for me when I get home from work, even though most of me knows it will never happen. My heart is slow in catching up with my head.

I arrived at work on Monday to find that an admirer had left me a beautiful orchid (“to celebrate your beautiful heart and spirit”) and that Monica had left me a beautiful Christmas present, which was revealed to be two exquisite wine glasses with a peacock feather pattern and a handmade rosemary scented soap:

I was delighted and told her that she made my day. Monica replied that each day has a “perfect moment” and we should share them with each other, so we have been doing that ever since. Here are a couple of mine from this week:

My perfect moment today was an iridescent, emerald green hummingbird resting in a stray ray of golden afternoon sunshine. Just for a moment.

Crossing the Hooterville Bridge, the last wooden bridge left on historic Highway One, with an empty road ahead of me ending in a glimpe of pink sunset peeking between the clouds, with a skein of black birds wheeling overhead.

As I drove down the muddy driveway, I noticed the thinnest crescent of moon glowing in the sky with Venus glittering nearby. The sky was the unearthly enameled blue of Italian Renaissance paintings.

Yesterday it was the incredible Technicolor sky as I arrived at work:

On my way home from work on Friday, I stopped in to say hello to my brother, in keeping with my New Year’s resolution. He was making soup and his mini cat Scout was curled up napping, though she deigned to be petted. She’s about 2/3 of regulation cat size and is super soft.

It was nice to catch up with Jonathan. He is plotting to get the grandfather clock at my house running again this year, and I’m hoping we will have dinner together soon. As I drove home, I thought how lucky I am to have such wonderful, inspiring people in my life.

A YEAR AGO: The madness of Covered California. You can’t make this up.

It was a year of change for me. Maybe too much in too short a time. I lost my job at the end of 2014 and jumped into the hell job in February, jumping ship for a less hellish job in March, and interviewing for a job I was lucky not to get in late summer. I have interviewed more over the past year than in the previous 20 years. I still kept up with the jobette, though, working Saturdays over the summer. Working six days a week was an interesting experience, and taught me a lot about time management.

The year ended on a tragic note, with the staggering loss of my beloved Roscoe. I can’t believe I will never see him again, hear his mournful meow, pet his rough, yet soft fur or his rakish torn ear. His loss leaves a hole in my heart and home which will never be filled.

Trips to San Francisco: 0! For the first time since moving to Hooterville, not one single trip to civilization. That’s what happens when you lose the job that paid for the trips.

Season rainfall (late 2014 through May 2015): 40.43 inches. Better than 2014’s 32.75 inches, but not enough to make a dent in the drought. Let’s hope the El Niño forecast for the 2015-16 winter is accurate, though not too floody.

Power Outages: Three, but they were epic, each time.

All that working made the merest dent in my reading, though, coming in at a count of 93 versus 2014’s 100. Favorite books read this year were all true stories. What Stands in a Storm was both inspiring and harrowing. It follows the lives of several Alabamans during a “superstorm” in 2011. I was so caught up in the lives and experiences of those who survived and those who didn’t that I was reading it with tears pouring down my face and my hands shaking. The Residence tells the fascinating story of the White House servants from the Kennedys to the Obamas. Many of the staff continue to serve the First Families well into their 70s and 80s, and become almost part of the family. Life After Murder follows the lives of men who were paroled after serving long prison sentences, the joys and challenges of adapting to life outside prison walls after decades inside. I learned a lot about California’s alarmingly arbitrary parole system, as well as human nature.

As for my little corner of the world:

January: My New Year’s clean up unearthed some treasures. A great celebration of Jarrett’s birthday. The Covered California madness continues. The many joys of Erica and Jessica. And visiting the dynamic duo in their Batcave/Palace.

February: A dream sparks a childhood memory. It’s nice to meander down memory lane sometimes. Stormageddon blasts into town, taking the power with it. And the weather just keeps getting scarier. I say farewell to my dear co-workers at the jobette. ~Sob~ The beginning of my new job. I love my handyman and my pen pal.

March: It’s Erin to the rescue when a propane leak stops me from getting home after a long day at work. I have such great friends! Why go jump in a lake when you can jump in an icy cold river? For charity? My brother is always my hero. And I have the best ex-husband ever. I also have a new job. Again. Remembering my father and best friend on his birthday. He was the best Dad ever. And speaking of family: it’s always fun to meet more! A trip to the South Coast to revel in a theater production all the way from London. And some spring cleaning at home.

April: A peek at the past, starring Me. In which my veins are found wanting. An evening at the theater. Learning about Hooterville’s past. My blog’s 14th birthday, and a very memorable 12th birthday for a very memorable girl. Saying goodbye
to Lu’s dog Marco, a gentle giant and a gentleman. Sleep well, sweet boy.

May: The Derby and a new ‘do – what’s not to love? It’s official! Stella joins the family. Trying to adjust to my new lot in life. More successfully on some days than others. A lovely evening at the theater. Megan’s wonderful birthday barbecue.

June: The extremeness of Audrey knows no bounds. She really is the Audreyest Audrey ever, from stripy head to expensive toe. A less than stellar birthday for our heroine this year. This was entirely made up for by the utter awesomeness of Junapalooza. Midnight adventures. Remembering a long ago Paris vacation. Megan and I take a day off together.

July: The midnight intruder left quite an impression. A wonderful time at the circus. Erica’s cleverness and creativity know no bounds. The unexpected leads to some unexpected road incidents. Dinner and a movie. The wonderful Kalli’s wonderful annual birthday party. Working six days a week presents some challenges. The retro balcony garden.

August: Fierce wildfires burn in neighboring Lake County, which was brutally hit again a month later by the even worse Valley Fire, whose burn scars could be seen from space. The fourteenth anniversary of Dad’s death. I will never stop missing and loving him. As time passes, I find I think more about how lucky I was to have him than how sad I am at losing him, though the sorrow is always there in my heart and my blood, like the bassline to a song. Of dentists, dogs, and James Dean. An an encounter with a deer. I hope I never have a close(r) encounter, though part of me fears that hitting a deer is pretty much inevitable.

September: Started the month out right with dinner and a play. Musings on cars. My younger, I mean, older brother is now 50! He is one of the most amazing people I know, and one of the best things in my life. Health insurance of any kind is just plain ridiculous, at least in this country. The pleasures of the County Fair. And the displeasure of the time change (even though it hasn’t happened yet. I’m pre-complaining here. It’s all about time management!).

October: Just another Manic Monday. A wonderful visit with a wonderful friend. And my friends can pretty much get me through anything. Taking a little break from it all. Vertigo suddenly rears its ugly head in my pretty one, and refuses to leave. Getting up close and personal with my old friend the moon.

November: Roscoe the hunter (and cuddler). A Jessica-free, but not fun-free Halloween. Our good friend Paul stops by while on a cross-country road trip with his 90 year father. A magical trip to the South Coast (is there any other kind?) to see Benedict Cumberbatch in “Hamlet”. And pick up some Thai food, of course. In which our heroine attempts to become less of a dizzy blonde. Thanksgiving preparations do not go as planned. But a good time was had by all.

December: The joy of the Festival of Lights at the Botanical Gardens. And the agony of losing my beloved cat Roscoe. Oh, Roscoe…

Let there be lights in the darkness. And a soul-soothing mini break, right here in town. And the beauty of the Bolshoi Ballet. A slightly neurotic and busy Christmas Eve, followed by a wonderful Christmas.

I did an OK-ish job of keeping my new year’s resolution to spend more time with friends and family. There’s room for improvement, though in my defense, I do work between 50 and 60 hours a week, which severely cuts into fun time. I would still like to spend more time hanging out with my brother when it’s not related to my car.

As for you, Dear Reader: I wish you health and happiness in this coming new year, and always. Thank you for always being there for me and sharing your wit and wisdom.

A YEAR AGO: A look back at 2014.

Christmas Day dawned both beautiful and cold:

which felt quite seasonal and festive but also meant that it was too cold to sit outside, even with the outdoor fireplace and a stack of wood chopped by my brother and kept dry on the porch. Somehow, we all packed into my little hippie hovel. Here’s Clayton, squeezed by the door to the studio with a glass of red wine to keep him company and keep him warm:

The table was set with all the heirlooms: my English grandmother’s ivory-handled silver and Wedgwood biscuit barrel (with my world-famous cheese biscuits) and salad dish with matching servers, dating from about 1830, and my American grandmother’s wineglasses and glass “Remembrance” platter:

Erica brought not one, but two Bûches de Noël, one a sinful chocolate and the other an Antoinette, based on the Tarte Antoinette (quince membrillo with vanilla chiffon) which was such a huge hit at Thanksgiving:

Jessica brought a Christmas drawing for each of us:

I love mine. And I love that kidlet. She and Jonathan did a spectacular job as always at the traditional reading of “Red Ranger Came Calling” after dinner, alternating pages and outdoing each other with showmanship:

You will notice that this is the first year she is too big to sit on Jonathan’s lap. Also that she is wearing fuzzy skeleton PJs.

It was great to share all our holiday traditions with old friends and new, and my house was overflowing with love and joy that night. It may have been cold outside, but it sure was warm and wonderful inside.

A YEAR AGO: A merry Christmas.

It’s 4 am. Do you know where your Suzy is?

She is sitting by the heater, Clyde at her side, contemplating all the things she should be doing as the rain patters against the roof/walls.

I went to sleep last night thinking of all the things I needed to do this morning, and this is not conducive to a good night’s sleep, even after a long and tiring day of cooking and cleaning.

I took yesterday off, and spent it cleaning my very humble home and then starting the epic parsnip Vichyssoise for tonight’s dinner. I used to make this for Christmas Eve dinner when Dad came for Christmas (he and my stepmother rented a house in Bodega Bay, partway between me in San Francisco and my sibs in Hooterville, and we all got to wake up together on Christmas morning), and I thought it would be fun to revive the tradition.

My brother dug up parsnips from the family garden, and I also used garlic from the garden. It was a lot of peeling and chopping, and I began to realize why I had stopped doing it. I will just say that between the cleaning and the food prep, it was 7:00 pm and I was still working on that soup, now reposing peacefully in the refrigerator as if nothing had happened. My “day off” was more work than an actual day of work.

My plan for today is to make salad dressing for tomorrow, finish the soup with milk and cream (it is insanely rich) and make whole wheat rolls to go with it. I also have to go over to my brother’s place to drop off Jack Daniel’s to go into the ham glaze and pick up chives to garnish the soup. Megan is going to stop by when she gets home from work early this morning and I will exchange her roasting pan for the salad and cheese biscuit fixings for Christmas dinner.

Our friend Clayton is on his way up today and will be with us for dinner. My cinematic choice for the evening is hovering between “A Christmas Story” and “The Nightmare Before Christmas”.

UPDATE:

The rolls are ready. Some rose to the occasion better than others:

I don’t think anyone will mind, though. Dinner’s ready!

The propane fairy came by and filled my tank. Of course, he also dropped off a bill for $282, which is due on New Year’s Eve, but it’s nice to have a full tank of gas.

My dear friend Erin stopped by with my Christmas gift, which I couldn’t resist opening on the spot. She said, “It just screamed you!” and so it does. It also fills in that embarrassing gap on my Charlie Brown Christmas tree:

And looks perfect with the other Eiffel Towers just across the room with my Dean & Deluca spice boxes:

She knows me so well!

A YEAR AGO: Santa brought me a power outage. You shouldn’t have! Guess I was more naughty than nice* (as usual).

*My favorite quote from the ever-soapy “Nashville”: “I guess nice just ain’t my color.”

I took a break from my Roscoe-less house and spent a night in the Big Town.

First, I left work early (!) and went to meet Angelika at a lovely, hidden away salon (hidden away in the Big Town rather than the Big Woods). She works there one day a week now, so it will be easier for me to pop in and get beautified now that I work in the Big Town so much.

Angelika greeted me with a warm hug as always. She has such a joyful yet restful presence, the perfect thing at any time but especially for a girl who is fighting the tide of sadness at the holidays. She cut about three inches off my hair and, as always, made it look better than I ever thought possible, while simultaneously lifting my spirits and making me feel hopeful again.

After my glamification, I did a little shopping in the heart of downtown and picked up dinner from the ever-crowded and ever-delicious Piaci’s Pizza, and then headed to the hotel.

From my days at the jobette, I still have many friends in the lodging industry, so I was able to get a lovely room at an equally lovely price. The room looked over a creek and estuary, where ducks met and played in the sunset water:

Looking to the right, there was a peek of ocean past the trestle bridge and historic Highway One. I watched the streetlights and house lights wink on as the pink sunset light faded into darkness.

I took a glass of wine and repaired to the enormous soaking tub with bath salts and bath gel thoughtfully provided:

As I floated in the embrace of the warm water, I felt myself relaxing. I tried to look my Roscoe feelings right in the face, acknowledge them, and let them go, at least for now. I decided: he had an ideal cat life, he was never sick a day in his life, was always loved. I was lucky to have had him at all. And we all know it’s never long enough.

I had dinner while enjoying a “Gilmore Girls” marathon on the thoughtfully provided DVD player, and slept a dreamless sleep. In the morning, I had coffee on the balcony overlooking the estuary, enjoying the view and the playing birds. I went out for breakfast, ran a couple of errands, stopped at the post office to find a boxful of Christmas cards (many of them glittery, which I love) and came home to find Audrey and Clyde waiting for me.

It was a nice little break.

It was 44 festive degrees in my house this morning. The boys and I huddled by the heater while the intrepid Audrey went out to explore in the chilly sunshine. I hear that it’s colder here lately than in parts of Alaska, which just seems wrong. Hooterville: putting the “North” in “Northern California”!

With the big chill, we went through most of the wood that my brother brought over for the outdoor fireplace. I had thoughtfully equipped the outdoor living room with throw blankets, but they remained unused (though commented upon), unlike the pillows, candles and an ashtray or two.

Erica and Jessica arrived first, replete with boxes of delicacies: wild mushroom tartlet appetizers; caramelized Brussels sprouts; a truffle-rich pie made from a squash grown on our family property, and Tarte Antoinette, made with a layer of home grown quince transformed into membrillo and then layered with vanilla chiffon. Even by Erica’s extremely high standards, it may have been the most delicious thing she has ever made:

Jessica was sporting the world’s most fabulous (and possibly Suzy-est) hat and fingerless gloves ever:

Needless to say, the ensemble, like Jessica herself, is an Erica original. Jessica returned the string of jade beads she had borrowed from the jewelry library last year, selecting a new item for this year. I noticed that all the items she has borrowed so far were given to me by my father.

Lichen still hasn’t realized that Thanksgiving (which is two days after his own birthday) isn’t a gift-giving occasion, so he brought a golden gift bag with artisan root beer for Jessica (“I’m obsessed with root beer!” she exclaimed happily). The root beer had a string of garnets fastened around its neck just for added Lichen-ness.

Jarrett and Kalli arrived with Kalli’s (very little) sister, who is five, and their dog, Archimedes, who was the World’s Cutest Puppy just three years ago, when he posed adorably on my couch. The cats did not find Archi adorable at all. Roscoe vanished for the remainder of the evening, while Clyde and Audrey repaired to the relative safety of the sleeping loft, where they could keep an eye on the intruder. The stairs did not, however, stop the kindergartener, who quickly and accurately assessed the situation: “That stripy cat is mean! But the black one is nice.”

Although she also opined that the dressing I made with the torturous chestnuts and Café Beaujolais Austrian sunflower seed bread “tasted like Subway”, dinner was great. In addition to Subway stuffing and Erica’s caramelized Brussels sprouts, there were mashed potatoes, carrots roasted with cumin and turmeric, fresh-pressed cider from the family orchard, freshly picked huckleberry tarts made by my brother, and cranberry bourbon relish. Jonathan sliced up the turkey after making a wonderful gravy:

We used every single piece of my grandmother’s ivory handled silver and every single plate in the house. Once again, some how, some way, I pulled off dinner for 15 people in my tiny house, and everyone, from the kindergartener to Me (why am I always the oldest?) had a great time. It fills my heart with joy to have my house overflowing with family and friends.

After the guests left, Megan and I put on some music and sat by the dying fire with that bottle of Cointreau, talking about the evening and the Thanksgivings past as the moon shone down on us and the stars sparkled. Life is good.

A YEAR AGO: Post Thanksgiving post.

Once again, Thanksgiving seemed to sneak up on me, even though I knew it was coming. I found myself lying awake at night “fretting” about it, as my ex used to say*. I later realized that this was partly due to having to plan and execute parties and huge catered meetings at work this month and next, in addition to having the family gathering at my house, and partly due to the fact that for the last several years, when I hostessed with the leastest, I wasn’t working in the Big Town for 5 or 6 days and/or 50 hours a week. So making Thanksgiving is more challenging than usual this time.

As usual, I’m not sure how many people will show up or where I will put them, but somehow we always figure that out. I have commissioned Rob to repo chairs from the family property, where they migrate during the summer party season, and bring them to my house for the winter season. He is also in charge of finding wood to put in the outdoor fireplace for the smoking/outdoor partiers. Despite the drought, I am hoping it doesn’t rain until after Thanksgiving. I need all the seating I can get.

Megan ordered the organic turkey from the Gro, excavated the roasting pan (which was our mother’s, and like everything Mom, it is the Cadillac of roasting pans) and lent me one of her big glass baking dishes for what my Southern friends call dressing. I have apparently learned nothing from previous years, because I assigned myself chestnuts to roast and peel for said dressing, although I know perfectly well that the torture the process inflicts is totally against the Geneva Conventions. As usual, the lure of deliciousness temporarily overcame my inherent laziness.

I also tried to fit in shopping here and there. I stopped in at Safeway before work one morning, and bought a six pack of wine, a bottle of Cointreau (for Megan and me after the guests leave), and cookies for 45 people for a work meeting. Yes, it was 7 am and I was buying nothing but booze and sugar. Of course, the clerk was the best friend of the person who does payroll at work, and ahead of me in line was the head of our IT department, buying virtuous yogurt and a banana. I can explain…

Megan and I met Erica in the beautiful Valley and handed over a Hubbard squash from the garden for her to Erica-ize into a pie (Jonathan is making a pie from apples grown on the property). I’m hoping she and Jessica can come early to hang out with me before everyone else gets there.

As for me, I’m hoping/planning/dreaming of getting out of work early on Wednesday to superficially clean the house (only things that show!), make my famous cranberry-bourbon relish (how surprised are you that I still have Jack Daniel’s left over from last year?) and roast those damn chestnuts with a minimum of swearing. Stay tuned…

*Him: Are you lying there fretting about something?

Me (Reluctantly): Yeeess…

Him (Reasonably): Well, what can you do about it now?

Me (Sadly): Nothing…

Him (Patiently): Then go to sleep.

He would go to sleep and I’d lie there, fretting.