The Dog's Pajamas

My dinner is better than your dinner

noreply@blogger.com (Betsy O'Donovan) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 02:01:00 +0000

I swear I meant to take a picture.

Words can't possibly capture the snap and hum of that wooden cutting board with rows of perfect tomato slices arranged by color.

On the right, a dark green and light green zebra-striped skin yielded to a tangy, almost lemony green center. Cuddled close to them, small, perfectly red discs the size of a quarter, bright yellow seeds bursting out onto the cutting board.

Then a slash of orange, a tomato that was almost too ripe to cut without crushing it, sliced into long slivers instead of rounds. A bright punch on the tongue, a little vinegar. And on the left, the half-dollar slices, a red-blue so dark that the tender meat looked almost black. They tasted like apples, and a little like wine.

You wouldn't believe the smell of those tomatoes. How could you? I just ate them and I still can't quite believe it. Tart and sharp near the skin, sweeter and deeper close to the meat.

And speaking of meat. The meat may have contributed to the unseemly speed of my hand, bobbing like a sewing machine needle between my mouth and the cutting board on which I had so tenderly arranged tonight's farmer's market feast. The prosciutto, tender and marbled and so thinly sliced that, yes, the fat actually did melt in my mouth when I snuck a shred of it during prep. The tiniest shreds, heaped carefully atop minuscule tomato slices.

Tomato. Prosciutto. A little kosher salt. A little grind of pepper. Ah, god.

My dinner was better than your dinner.

Savage and Introverted

noreply@blogger.com (Betsy O'Donovan) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 21:40:00 +0000

I had a lot of company last week. A big party. A sleepover. Writers' group. A weekend with my family.

I like all of those things, but a quick Myers-Briggs test will confirm that, although I am ever so weensily-slightly on the "extrovert" end of the spectrum, it only takes a hip-bump and a houseful of people to nudge me over to a little introverted recharging.

To wit, I needed to Garbo out. Darling, I vant to be ah-luhn.

I want to hang out in my house, read library books in one sitting, eat junk food, drink coffee and avoid the company of all of the people I like and love. I'm going feral, but with a caveat.

If I get hit by a bus before I am done with my feral/Garbo period, please do not judge me by the state of my kitchen.

Baby J.D.

noreply@blogger.com (Betsy O'Donovan) — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 15:45:00 +0000

"What are we studying for, Aunt B?"

Captain Cavalry and I were snuggled into a chair together, as cuddled up as one can get with a nearly-10-year-old. My PowerScore Logic Games Bible was spread out in front of us and we each had a piece of scrap paper for a worksheet.

"They have a logic games section on the LSAT, which is the test you take before you apply to law school."

"Oh." CC often says "oh" as a placeholder while he chews over his next (sometimes terrifying, sometimes hilarious) idea. "So, I can take this test and go to school to be a law person? A lawyer?"

"Yep," I said. He lit up and I realized where this was going.

"No," his mother said. "First, you have to get your undergraduate degree. Then you can go to law school."

"So I can't go with Aunt B?"

"Honey, I don't think I'm going to wait that long?"

"Oh." Pause pause pause. "I'll help you with your homework anyway."

I should note that, once we set up the game, he got two of the questions right without any help.

Conversation with the exterminator

noreply@blogger.com (Betsy O'Donovan) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:25:00 +0000

"I have ants," I said. "Can you guys come back?"

The appointment scheduler at my pest-control company is not my number one fan.

"Well, ma'am, I'll see what I can do. It's more effective if we can get into the house."

I, on the other hand, am not a big fan of strangers in my house, nor of waiting around for services. Nor, come to think of it, of chemicals sprayed in the interior.

"Can't you just do the windows and foundation again? I just realized that I didn't see him do the windows last time."

The noise she makes is best rendered in text as "hrrrmph."

"If you were there, you could have let him in and done the spraying on the inside. Then you wouldn't have ants now."

"If he had done the windows, maybe I wouldn't have ants. Let's try that first."

"Are you sure all of your food is sealed?"

"It's a small house, but I have not yet taken to storing food in the bathroom. They're after water in the shower."

Hrrrmph again.

"I'll see what I can do. If you let him inside, it'll take care of the whole problem."

"Hrrrmph."

Mortgage thoughts

noreply@blogger.com (Betsy O'Donovan) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:26:00 +0000

So, I've begun planning to ~~take on a considerable amount of debt in the next few years~~ go to grad school in the fall of 2010.

Because I am me, this involves a considerable amount of gung-ho studying for the requisite entrance exams and an equal amount of freaking out the financial side of the equation.

It's kind of exciting to be in charge of my finances, to be all-but-the-house debt free, and to be socking away money for emergencies and so forth. (For the record, I highly recommend J.D. Roth's Get Rich Slowly blog, which was tremendously helpful, as was Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover.)

For fun, today I calculated whether I would be wise to refinance my home loan from a 30-year to a 15- or 20-year and/or put the $288 that I put toward my car payment each month into paying down the principle each month. If I don't refinance, but do pay down the principle, I'd own the cottage outright in 11 years. Wow. Wow.

And then I realized that any move toward grad school — even if I only go part time — is going to make that plan more complicated.

I'm torn: Would that $288 a month be better spent on books and school fees and all of that stuff (i.e., reducing the amount of debt I would take on for school), or would I be better off putting it into the house? It will, of course, depend on the interest rates of the student loan package (and/or grants) I can get, but it will also depend on how I can wrap my head around the idea of taking on more debt.

(For the record, I know that this is a laughably small amount of money to a lot of people, but those people are probably not considering a return to student status.)

I am clearly going to have to spend some late nights crouched over Excel spreadsheets, fiddling and figuring. If I needed proof about how different my life is now than it was three years ago, it's in the fact that I'm kind of excited by the prospect.

Mini-rant

noreply@blogger.com (Betsy O'Donovan) — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 14:48:00 +0000

You know, I love kids. I love other people's kids. I like to play with them, I like to talk to them, I like to babysit and change diapers and go to birthday parties and have little kids (and bigger kids, and teenagers) in my life. It makes for a more interesting world.

So, in the tense debate between parents and the deliberately child-free, I hang out in the DMZ.

I think the child-free who think children automatically shouldn't be allowed in certain restaurants are being unreasonable twits. (Well-behaved children should, in my opinion, be welcome everywhere.)

At the same time, parents whose screaming, rude children are turning a restaurant into their own, personal playroom are, in my opinion, an entitled plague upon society. (Babies are exempted from this, as are the children. It's all on parents, I'm afraid.)

But that's the tender subject of good manners. I'd rather talk about taxes.

Something about this particular Momversation has been irritating the hell out of me.

I think it's the part where only Heather Armstrong was able to acknowledge the degree of privilege that families receive in our society.

There's an argument for this: Families are the base unit of society. Our society's mechanisms for growth are immigration and population replacement through reproduction. We don't want to die out as a society, the family is a stabilizing unit, therefore the government will incentivize reproduction.

This is why I, a happy taxpayer who supports education, am paying for public schools at the national, state and county level (the county part would change if I didn't own my own home), although I do not participate in said system.

I did, however, benefit from tax dollars funding education when I was educated. I continue to benefit from having friends, neighbors and a labor pool with a common baseline of education.

What I, a happy taxpayer, do not appreciate, is that parents are so thrilled to overlook the fact that the majority of easily accessible tax credits are based upon having children. Child care tax credit. Tuition reimbursement. Credit for dependents.

This isn't money that we don't need. It's money that the government returns to you as an incentive for having kids. Fine. But it does (slightly) gall that parents get all huffy about anyone who harbors the teeniest resentment for being relegated to second-class taxpayer status.

By the way: I think business and government should be working harder to support families. I think work-life balance and family support are critical to our national economy. I don't think it should be an automatic assumption, though, that the child-free are the ones who ought to pick up the slack.

Automatic blog post

noreply@blogger.com (Betsy O'Donovan) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:17:00 +0000

Aw. An American soldier is greeted by his dogs upon returning from Iraq. Of course I got misty and laughed.

Bulletin

noreply@blogger.com (Betsy O'Donovan) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:32:00 +0000

Further bulletins:

1. After almost four years at the E-J, I've made a discovery: It feels like heaven in the server room at the office.

I've been cleaning out the newsroom closet (Cameras that use film! Yellowing letterhead from the '80s! Claris software! Sadly faded holiday decor!) so I can build a morgue for the weekly papers that are presently creating a dense and ever-growing fortress around my desk. People joke about how messy I am, but those people? Do not have newspaper gremlins delivering stack after stack of newsprint in willy-nilly piles upon their desks.

Anyway, I had to put the software from the closet somewhere (god forbid that we get rid of the old boxes of Quark v. 2.1), so I am stacking them neatly in the server room. Unlike the rest of our heat-gathering old warehouse of a news factory, it's really kicking out the conditioned air. You couldn't hang meat in there, but you could lock a city editor in for a few hours with a book and, between you and me, she would not complain.

2. I've been on three parallel reading binges: magical realism (think Alice Hoffman, Sarah Allen Addison), non fiction (highly recommended: "The New Kings of Non-Fiction," edited by Ira Glass, and also "What Would Google Do?"), and Laurie R. King's Mary Russell series (always highly recommended).

3. I trimmed my own hair this week (about an inch) and lost a pound and a half. (One hopes the two are unrelated, despite my sentence structure.)

4. Beau's foot is healed (so he has been released from the satellite dish, which will henceforth be called "the cone of shame," courtesy of the move "Up"). He has also been reintroduced to the barking collar, which seems to have curbed his desire to fence fight with the dog next door. Apparently it's no good running up and down the fence line, snarling and snapping, if you can't do it at full volume.

Smitty seems to suffer from miserable heat rash. (He's getting lots of baths with oatmeal-based shampoo. This would be a second misery for a slightly less affectionate dog, but he seems to regard it as super bonus petting time. Love that little guy.)

5. I have been eating a lot of popcorn lately. The popcorn hierarchy goes: Popped in big soup pot on stovetop; air-popped with butter; air-popped with margarine; microwaved.

Mini-bulletins

noreply@blogger.com (Betsy O'Donovan) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 13:44:00 +0000

A few things:

I have a new bike! And I love it. (See above.) I tend to ride around town in a skirt and heels, in part because that's what I wear most days, and in part because I once caught the leg of my Very Favorite Pants in the chain/derailleur of my bicycle and they were ripped into uselessness. I am now very paranoid about wearing pants while riding my bicycle.
I have somehow managed to break the decorative carving on one of my dining room chairs (the old, black ones -- not the new, oak ones) and am now (a) in search of wood glue and (b) very pleased that my dad taught me some basic principals of woodworking and minor home repairs. Every kid should leave home knowing how to fix things.
My mom is coming for a weeklong visit sometime in the midsummer or early fall. I am extremely excited about this, and it's not just because we completely organized my house the last time she came for a visit (New Year's).
I have decided to sprout an avocado tree, which is a time-honored family tradition for the O'Donovans. To date, no O'Donovan has succeeded in this attempt, but MY avocado seems to be splitting itself and getting ready to do ... something. If I succeed at this, I think I need a trophy or a prize or something.
Beau continues to wear a satellite dish on his head. He's getting better at navigating the house, but he's learned to use it as a weapon when he wants something from me and I'm ignoring him. The edges of those things are sharp and painful when a dog decides to bash you with them.
Oh! I should also mention that his recent stomach ailment turned out to be no big deal and cleared up immediately after they got the right meds in him. So, yay. My old dog is not yet my old, incontinent dog.
So far, my planned travels for the rest of the year are going to include: Madison, Wis.; Omaha, Neb.; and Baltimore, Md.
I am reading a lot. There was a brief period in May when I departed from character and was hardly reading at all, but I have returned to my senses (and usual form) and am back to my library criminal ways.

Problems

noreply@blogger.com (Betsy O'Donovan) — Wed, 27 May 2009 00:38:00 +0000

I confess: While I was on my hands and knees, scrubbing stains out of my stupid beige carpet for the second time today, I wondered whether it's time.

I was ready for that question at Christmas. No. Not ready. But resigned. Beau was in terrible shape, unable to rise from the floor, dragging his back legs around, in pain and filthy from falling as he defecated.

I didn't want it, but I really thought it might be time to call the vet and carry Beau over there, one final time.

Does that seem coldblooded?

I have actually stared at the ceiling some nights, trying to figure out how I would manage his death at home. There isn't a coroner to call, no canine 911, and when one's dog weighs almost 100 pounds, there are practical considerations. How would I move his body? Could I bury him? Is that even legal? I know I can find the answers. I'm not sure I care to look.

I know I am not sentimental enough to want his ashes when he dies, just his picture and my memories of a very good dog. Nor do I see any great virtue in going deeply into debt for hip replacements, kidney repair, or tooth brushing.

And yet, I am sentimental in my way. The beige carpet -- so impractical for a dog lover -- covers hardwood floors. It would have been a thing of the past, but for Beau's bad hips. The carpet helps him grip, gives him traction to stand up. He never walks through the kitchen; the linoleum is too slick. To help him out, I've added bath mats in front of his food bowl and in a short path from my carpeted bedroom to the back door. It looks like hell, but my dog can live in this house.

In some ways, the fast decline this winter, so rapid that it frightened me into tears on Christmas Day, was a gift. He was in actual pain, unmanageable pain, and my growing conviction had nothing to do with my convenience and everything to do with what was best for Beau. It would have been hard but, in some ways, so very simple.

Today? Today, I was not noble. Today, I woke up to find my carpet reeking and stained, despite the three times I let Beau out last night. Today, I scrubbed the carpet before I had my coffee, gagging from the smell and calling my vet. ("Ulcers," they said. "Keep giving him the medication.")

Today, while I was at work, he chewed open the foot that has already cost me more than $700 in surgical bills. Today, he bled all over the carpet.

Today, I scrubbed the damned carpet again, just eight hours after the first round. Today, after I dressed his foot and contemplated the coming vet bills, I looked at him and said, "Buddy, I have about had it with you," and he lowered his tail and head.

In the middle of all of this, Himself called. We've been at total radio silence for weeks.

"Remind me again why I love this stupid freaking dog," I said.

I glared at that noisy, accident-prone, smelly old thing. As usual, he was looking at me, and his eyes were the same sweet, melting brown that they've always been, eager and curious. I felt guilty, but torn. The practical considerations still apply -- the limits of my budget and my patience and my ability to keep him safe and healthy.

And ... Every dog loves his person this much. They're just built that way. It isn't love, really. It's pack instinct.

But.

But this dog is not every dog. He's mine, and he's been stubbornly, hilariously, misanthropically present through some of the hardest parts of my adult life. Does it matter whether he knew it? Does it change what I think I owe him? Right now, while I type this, he has collapsed next to my chair, flat and panting and, yes, smelly.

"Well," Himself said cautiously, "he sits still and hangs out with you. He's good company. And ... and he loves you."

I looked at Beau, and at the empty can of carpet cleaner, and at the pile of filthy rags, and at the picture of him that I took three years ago when he was swimming in the Ocoee River, golden and happy and old even then.

"Damn it," I said. "You're right."

Best thing today: Furious blue jay

noreply@blogger.com (Betsy O'Donovan) — Sun, 17 May 2009 16:24:00 +0000

Beau, bless his heart*, is no longer allowed to go outside unsupervised. This is partially because his foot is still healing and I don't want it reinjured, and partially because he and the dog next door get into really awful yelling matches when left to their own devices. It also gives me a chance to harvest some of the bumper crop of elderberries that are ripening thick and fast just outside the door.

This has given me a ringside seat for one of the funniest spectacles I've seen in some time.

A blue jay has taken up residence in my back yard, and about a week ago it took to screaming imprecations at Beau every time the Big Yellow Dog stuck his head out of the back door.

When I was a little girl, I was puzzled by a passage in a Mercedes Lackey book that described a blue jay cursing a cavalcade of riders below. I couldn't figure out how a bird call would sound like cursing.

Now, of course, I know. And blue jays have filthy vocabularies.

About three days ago, the blue jay started taking action against the intruder. It went like this:

Beau sticks his head out of the creaky back door. Blue jay, alerted by the noise, begins full-throated protest.

Beau proceeds down the back steps and wanders into the yard. SWOOSH. The blue jay makes a pass about eight feet over Beau's head. Beau ignores it.

Beau pauses to water the clover and contemplate life as an aging dog. The blue jay, still screaming and increasingly furious, dive bombs, pulling out of his steep fall about four feet above Beau's back. Beau continues his silent meditation.

Crazed with rage, the blue jay dives closer and closer, until I am genuinely concerned that we are going to see a bird-on-dog assault.

Today, I was filling a bowl of berries when the blue jay settled on a branch about three feet from me, stared at me with one crazy eye, and let off an incessant alarm call.

SQUAWK. (FILTHY INTERLOPER!) SQUAWK! (YOU STUPID HUMAN!) SQUAWK! (GO BACK INTO YOUR BOX AND STAY THERE!)

Since the jay had thus far ignored me, I was surprised and a little amused. And then I pulled down a branch, showering a bunch of ripening berries on the ground, and heard a peep about a foot away from my foot.

I looked down. Fledgling blue jay, fat and fuzzy/feathery, had just been bonked on the head by elderberries. He looked indignant. I laughed and went inside.

*I mean this in the most Southern sense of the phrase.

Idiot comedy

noreply@blogger.com (Betsy O'Donovan) — Thu, 07 May 2009 01:55:00 +0000

So, Beau ripped his foot open a week and a half ago. I don't know how, but I do know that the bill for the emergency vet was $720. Ah, the joys of pet ownership.

When I went to Omaha this weekend, he got to stay at the regular vet, where they were to change his bandage and keep an eye on his dumb self. (Smitty stayed home with a sitter.)

Sometime Saturday, Beau ate his bandage. Ate it. All. Without ketchup.

So they strapped him into an e-collar, which they added to my bill when I picked him up today. They brought him out without a bandage, carrying the e-collar, so I stupidly didn't put it on him today.

When I got home tonight? Evidence of chewing in the vicinity of his stitches.

I am taking no small pleasure in watching him bumble around the house, indignant and off balance, trying to figure out why he can't walk under chairs with his giant satellite head.

Snippets from Omaha

noreply@blogger.com (Betsy O'Donovan) — Wed, 06 May 2009 23:19:00 +0000

A joke from Captain Cavalry:

A state highway patrolman noticed that a woman was driving far too fast on the highway. When he raced behind her, lights flashing, she didn't stop, so he pulled up next to her, looked over, and realized that she was knitting and paying no attention to the road. He rolled down his window and shouted, "PULL OVER!"

The woman looked up, startled, and smiled at him.

"PULL OVER!" he shouted, waving wildly.

She waggled her fingers, rolled down her window and shouted back, "No, it's a SCARF!"

That's because she doesn't have a cup of coffee waiting for her:

On Monday, The Bird requested a tuck-in and a story. I told him the story of Smitty's first haircut, and he laughed and pointed out that hair always grows back. Silly Smitty, we agreed.

"One more story?" he asked.

"Nope, honey, that's it. Sleep tight," I said, and kissed his forehead.

"One more story?"

"Nope. Love you."

He snuggled deeper into his covers and made a noise that sounded suspiciously like "Hmph!"

"Grandmama would tell me another story," he said.

Props to Nicola

noreply@blogger.com (Betsy O'Donovan) — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 02:45:00 +0000

I have to say that I really love the turn that Alpha Heroes took this week, when Nicola got the very bright idea of adding interviews with people in, around, or commenting on the industry.

This week's are especially interesting because she tracked down some queer theorists who write about romance novels. Since Nic and I are both more-than-mildly obsessed with novels by J.R. Ward (despite, as one might note from our previous conversations and reviews about the series, some seriously irritating tics in her writing), it's fascinating to see that it's drawn more than a little interest in academic circles, too.

(Thank heavens for some justification beyond a shrug and "It's like a blend of Fritos and crack in text form; I can't explain it.")

Not fit for mealtime conversation, young lady.

noreply@blogger.com (Betsy O'Donovan) — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 10:48:00 +0000

I said "heave," minions!

Mrs. Manners and Dad are doing a drive-by today to deliver my Christmas present: A new dining room table. This will be a distinct improvement over my current dining room arrangement, which can serve four if they're (a) very good friends who (b) don't mind banging their knees against the table legs all the time.

I'm rather excited, not least because a lot of my party hosting plans revolve around being able to feed people and/or have room for rowdy board games. The new table -- a round, golden oak, pedestal number with clawed feet and leaves -- is precisely what was wanted.

In addition to the usual game night hijinks, I'm planning to start a series of Unspeakable Dinners. I've got such an interesting array of acquaintances, most of whom have some insight or expertise into all of the topics that are too rude to discuss. Politics, religion, etc., etc.

For the first one, I think we're going to have Ninth Night Lamb and a simple salad, and a friendly discussion about the idea of heaven and hell.

(I'm probably going to have to revisit this topic, because I think six or eight is a manageable party, but I am mentally tallying up my guest list and it's huge: Atheist raised Catholic, liberal Baptist minister, conservative Baptist minister, English professor/C.S. Lewis fan, seminarian who went into law, seminarian who's still in school, seminarian who performs lay ministry, Flannery O'Connor aficianado, hardboiled agnostic/former Baptist, etc., plus spouses/significant others.)

Future topics might include: Gay marriage and the marriage amendment in N.C., whether the murder of a pregnant woman should automatically carry a second murder charge (currently under debate in this state), political districts in our county, why the GOP has such a lock around here and whether that's good, bad or indifferent, miscellaneous doctrinal differences, etc., etc.

I'm very excited.

My family has always been in favor of child labor.

"Victory coffee?" "Yes, thanks. Just the thing."

Home!

noreply@blogger.com (Betsy O'Donovan) — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 02:20:00 +0000

The dogs are hovering with exasperated expressions. It was a wonderful trip, but I'm pleased to be in my little cottage with my little kitchen waiting for me to make a late homecoming dinner, with my warm bed ready for an incipient collapse.

More later.
Love,
me

I will never be able to find it again

noreply@blogger.com (Betsy O'Donovan) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 13:38:00 +0000

This is the violet hour, the hour of hush and wonder,
when the affections glow again and valor is reborn,
when the shadows deepen magically along the edge of the forest
and we believe that, if we watch carefully, at any moment we may see the unicorn.
- Bernard DeVoto "The Hour"

To be perfectly honest, I was thinking about amputating both feet and the beautiful, dangerous shoes that were shredding them. It should go without saying -- it does, because who is this ridiculous? -- but four-inch heels are not the ideal shoe for wandering around Chicago. Sure, you can trip daintily down the sidewalk like a baby fawn, but after a few wrong turns and a lot of blocks, the reality is more "mince along" than "slink." And -- this should also go without saying -- when you're heading to a speakeasy, giddy with good conversation and Moscow Mules, a little slink seems necessary.

(Or, as Lizzie put it, "If I moved here, I would need to start worrying about what I wear.")

I was so wrapped up in my own shoe melodrama that it seemed like the world's best magic trick when our local guide whipped open a hidden door in an unmarked building and ushered us into a tiny, dark hallway and through a pair of heavy velvet curtains that completely obscured what came next.

"It's Southern gothic, with the best drinks," he said, and it was. When we got in -- because, like any good gin joint, there was a wait, and practically a password -- the chandelier was dripping crystals, the music was brilliant, the chairs made me glance around for my minions ("Bring me a sidecar, Fergus!") and I could have snuggled in and enjoyed the 1920s for hours and hours.

In fact, I did. I was glad for the shoes.

Hey! Ho! Let's go!

noreply@blogger.com (Betsy O'Donovan) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 19:18:00 +0000

View Larger Map

So, this is (tentatively) the route for Manifest Destiny 2K9: The Great Northern Swing.

Lizzie and I are heading for Detroit (and the Power House Project), Chicago (and all the fun that that implies), Madison (Cheese! and the House on the Rock), and hoping to see plenty of good, old-fashioned American roadside attractions along the way.

So here's my question for you: Given our highly flexible route, what else do we need to put on the list? Do you know a great restaurant, a cool museum, a kooky tourist trap, a really big ball of string? Let's go, folks; spill it.

An unacceptable degree of wuss (and best thing today)

noreply@blogger.com (Betsy O'Donovan) — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 22:04:00 +0000

Unacceptable degrees of wuss: Giving up on replacing windshield wiper blades because the entire process didn't line up with the various instructions on the internet, I've lost my car manual, and I was pretty sure I was about to break a nail.

Unrelated best thing today: A really solid run through a new part of town that was all pretty houses, hills and interesting gardens.

Best thing today: BAT salad

noreply@blogger.com (Betsy O'Donovan) — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:54:00 +0000

Here are some of the things I need to get tattooed on my forearms in order to combat my persistently poor memory:

How to spell receive and judgment
My sister's cell phone number
The numbers of our congressional districts
Everyone's birthdays
Assorted dates for various wars
A chart of weights and measures
That I bought avocados and they will continue to ripen even if I ask them to stop

Here are some of the things that don't require such a reminder:

Everything is better with bacon
If you don't have bread but you do have croutons, you can make a reasonably good approximation of a BLT in salad form
Except everyone knows that lettuce has no point in the BLT, so one should substitute avocados (even if they are disobediently slightly overripe and only fit for guacamole)
And if one doesn't have croutons, one can always just make the bacon extra-crispy

Run, baby, run

noreply@blogger.com (Betsy O'Donovan) — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 13:37:00 +0000

Mrs. Manners and I were having a conversation yesterday about marriage, divorce, sadness and integrity and, as usual, discussing those things with any degree of honesty left me about as soothed as an espresso-addicted volunteer in a Milgram experiment. (I suspect it had the same effect on M.M.)

By the end of the conversation, I was quietly strapping on my running shoes. There was no way I was going to putter around the house without first pounding my feelings to death against some asphalt.

One of the things I'm learning about running regularly is that it rivals driving cross-country for reducing the noise in my head. It makes space for some of the shy thoughts that are too embarrassed to cross my daily brain.

Yesterday, in the wake of that conversation, my thoughts drifted to the very simple, pure rules that I've relied on in the last few years. If I'm a growing thing -- and I hope I am, and I hope you are, too -- then these are the stakes that keep me from collapsing in on myself or falling over under any kind of stress.

The funny thing, of course, is that that they're all things I used to know, or was told as a child but never really needed or attempted to apply before. Things like:

- If something's difficult but needs to be done, look it square in the eyes and throw yourself at it.
- Excuses breed.
- Be grateful always, but ask for what you want.
- Don't be a coward, and don't do anything you're afraid to name out loud. ~~If you can't admit what you're doing, you're either a coward or doing something terrible.~~
- How you deliver on a promise, a debt or an obligation defines you.

Of course, as I ran and ran all I could think about was the many ways I fail to live up to all of these things, how getting divorced means hewing closely to some of these and failing miserably at others, how much better I want to be, and how grateful I am for friends and family who comfort me when I fall short, and how many more pairs of running shoes I'm going to need to deal with whatever comes next.

Salvage and salvation and ... well, fun

noreply@blogger.com (Betsy O'Donovan) — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 13:50:00 +0000

I've been on a little bit of an urban planning/design binge lately, renewing my acquaintance with Jane Jacobs and finally reading "Fixing Broken Windows" by George Kelling and Catherine Coles.

And becoming ever more fascinated with Detroit, much to the horror of Pots and Lizzie, who are from Michigan and are practically throwing their bodies under the wheels of my car at the very suggestion that I might consider heading up there to suss out the situation.

I'm not the only one who's interested.

Sweet Juniper has documented several of the odd, winsome, scary and desolate faces of that city. (Check out the post I, Scrapper for a sad look at what happens to abandoned elementary schools. The short version: Jim went in and salvaged library books that had been left to rot, like some scene out of "The Time Machine" or "The Stand.")

Then there's Design 99, also in Detroit, run by the artist/architect couple that created the Power House Project (getting significant play all over the blogosphere -- check out this strong post -- and in the NY Times here).

And then there's the cold, awful reality of Cleveland and the problems that arise in areas where an entire population has just walked away.

(In an obscure way, it reminds me of a book that -- damn it -- I have somewhere in a bin. It's about a peculiar hysteria, in which people simply leave home one day and walk and walk and walk until the madness abates and then they simply wind down, like fading toys. No, I'm not actually thinking of Forrest Gump. Two shiny pennies and my gratitude if anyone can come up with the title so I don't have to dig through boxes today.) (AHA! Got it: Mad Travelers by Ian Hacking, review here.)

There's something about these stories that's as exciting as it is frightening, and something thrilling about the pyrrhic potential of urban collapse.

Might as well be, though

noreply@blogger.com (Betsy O'Donovan) — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 19:37:00 +0000

I'm as restless as a willow in a windstorm,
I'm as jumpy as a puppet on a string.
I'd say that I had spring fever,
But I know it isn't spring.
— "It Might As Well Be Spring," Oscar Hammerstein

On Sunday, I found myself driving through a hellacious snowfall, thinking endlessly grateful thoughts the whole time that Mrs. Manners does not, to my knowledge, have a crystal ball that reports my whereabouts in real time. (She would have waited until I pulled into the driveway and then the phone would have rung, and then "What were you thinking? Where is your judgment?" At least, that's what she would have said when I was 16, which is about how old I feel when I'm having paranoid-that-my-mother-will-find-out thoughts.)

On Monday, I slogged through slush for my thrice-weekly run. It's a new routine, and I felt tough and like a real runner as my ankles froze. Charmed by the sunshine (and ignoring the actual ground conditions), I went out in a short-sleeved T-shirt. Forget King Kong. Old Man Winter's got nothin' on me.

Spring is still 16 days away, at least on the calendar. The calendar lies.

Today, I wrapped up my run next to a Little League field near my house and stretched out on the bleachers, straight up basking. I turned my wrists and inner elbows and face to the sun and let spring come to me, creeping in early around the small crusts of snow and ice that remain in the shade.

Come on, tulips. All hail, daffodils.

I think we're turning Japanese (I really think so)

noreply@blogger.com (Betsy O'Donovan) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 22:53:00 +0000

But I think we should try to avoid it.

Smelling faintly of wet dog

noreply@blogger.com (Betsy O'Donovan) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 03:30:00 +0000

Unidentified noise from below the rim of the tub: Squeak. Squeaksqueak. SQUEEEEEEAK.

Me: C'mon, now. I'm reading.

Noise: Squeakersqueakersqueak.

Me: In the bathtub. I'm reading in the bath. What conclusions can we draw from this? Perhaps that I'm trying to relax?

Noise: Sq-Sq-Sq-Squeeeeeeeeak. Eek.

Me: Beau's not doing a thing. Why don't you see if he'll ...

Noise (dejected): squeak

Me: Give me that.

Smitty: My monkey. GIVE ME BACK MY SQUEAKY MONKEY.

Me: No.

Smitty (paws on the rim of the tub): But I WANT MY ... Hey, what are you doing in there? It looks warm.

Me: What did I just say?

Smitty: That you're taking a bath?

Me: Yes.

Smitty: Can I have a bath?

Me: Sure.

Smitty: Yay!

Me: No. Wait. No. Get down. You cannot ...

A damp struggle ... a splash ...

Me: What did you just do?

Smitty: This is nice. It is warm.

Me: Oh, my god. I don't think people believe me when I tell them how weird you are.