Thoughts and Words Ill-Sorted

After sending Sydney off to sweat through his oral exams this afternoon I decided to take a walk.  I’ve been feeling a bit like mud on a stick recently, so a walk seemed like a good idea.  After mailing off baby present #4 for the summer, I hit the cute little grocery in the little town near our house.  One mile of walking and you find yourself in a place with organic chocolate, bulk oats, and good cheese.  Intending only to pick up a couple of apples, I found myself looking at a cantaloupe.  I’d been dreaming incessantly about a cantaloupe (yeah, I know, I get on weird food kicks) since Saturday, so the coincidence seemed just too good to turn down.

Of course, even as I was paying for the cantaloupe (and the half-dozen apples, plus a few other things) I was thinking about how much it was going to hurt hauling it home.  Over a mile, mostly uphill, with a really steep climb the last tenth of a mile or so.  Oh yeah, and another part of that mile is a seasonal road that is basically just a gravel trail up the side of a gorge.  Oh well.  I made it and I’m dying for Sydney to come home, tell me all about the exam, and join me in eating cantaloupe.

Erin

On Thursday Sydney and I celebrated our third anniversary.  Yeah, yeah, for those of you who have been there longer, we know we have a long way to go.  In fact, Sydney and I are in competition to see which one outlives the other: I’m relying on regular exercise and being female, Sydney’s touting his goody-two-shoes, tree-hugging eating habits.  So, competitive spirits that we are, we intend to live past a hundred.  With three years down and Sydney being thirty, we’re looking at 70+ years of marriage left.  Maybe by the end we’ll have figured each other out.

Our celebration was pretty quiet: dinner out at our favorite Thai place.  Since we’re going on a camping trip next weekend we didn’t want to add more travel to a travel-filled summer, and Sydney will (fun fun!) be taking his major exams on Tuesday, so no need to keep him away from his books for too long!

Erin

I know it has cooled off a bit, but … really?

No, not yet.  Sydney and I are still just roaming around home, reading and cooking and every now and then gardening.  But in less than two weeks we’re going camping in the Adirondacks with our friends Jacob and Kate.  The weekend will include two full days of canoing (Sydney apparently thinks it’s reasonable to expect novice paddlers to cover 15 miles a day, two days in a row) and, if time and energy allow, some hiking and enjoying of nature.  Most exciting for me is the chance to camp for the first time (unless you count the time when my brother and I tried sleeping in a tent next to our house, and I wouldn’t, since that was a bug-filled disaster).  And Sydney’s not breaking me in easy: no established campsite, no running water, no soap allowed, and, needless to say, no outhouse.  We’re going rustic in a big way.

Erin

In the past few weeks I’ve been frustrated by the way the days have slipped by. Today, however, with a bit more “day of rest” in mind, Sydney and I had a lovely day. After church we dropped by Purity ice cream (church ran late, we had to close up the church, and by then I was ready to eat my seatbelt) and then came home, where we made potato-tomato casserole. This casserole, by the way, is one of the first recipes Sydney made in his adult life, one that he tried out in our shabby apartment the summer before we got married. I think he actually designs his garden with this casserole in mind, ensuring that we’ll have ingredients for it at all times. It’s that good.

We ate the casserole while balancing our plates and reclining in the hammock in our yard. We fed little bits to the chickens (who love digging in the wood chips under the hammock), I read aloud a chapter of an interesting book, and we took a bit of a nap in the sunshine.

We’re now cooking. Yes, I know it’s well past supper time, but I asked Sydney to make a borscht (to use up the cabbage that’s hogging our fridge) and he asked me to try making beet carob cake. You know, like chocolate cake with a bit of beet in it. I’ve seen this recently. We’ll see how it goes!

Erin

S: You’re going to be a much better parent than I am.

E: (surprised and flattered) Oh?

S: Yes.  You bother answering those stupid “Why?” questions that kids ask so incessantly.  Your answers are sometimes pretty shady and they don’t always make sense, but you answer nonetheless.

E: (deflated) Oh.

* * *

And that, people, is what I have to show after 15 years of babysitting.

Erin

This evening Sydney asked me to proofread his paper before he submitted it to his examining committee (yup, his major exams are coming up on the 18th).  Such requests usually spark long evenings of vigorous discussion as we try to reconcile my desire for a bit of panache with his need to keep things clear and philosophical.  I’m not talking about sonnet rhyme schemes or anything; I just want him to consider using a synonym or two to relieve the tedium of reading the same technical term over and over and over again.  And Sydney, in turn, will never let me live down the fact that the average sentence length of my papers is somewhere around thirty words.

But this time I caught him.

In the first paragraph of his paper I asked him to stick to a single term, since he seemed to alternate between “ultimate” and “final” in his discussion.  And then I stumbled across a sentence that was 75 words long!  Not obscuring its length in appositive or subordinate clauses or making use of the semicolon, it was just really and truly long, and brash as can be about it.   Something tells me I’m going to hold onto this one for years to come.

Erin

Late this evening I reached into the chicken coop to make sure all had gotten in for the night before I shut the door.  I counted by running my fingers over silkily-feathered necks and burying them in even fluffier tails.  I’ve never come out low on my count, despite the profusion of coyotes in the area, and I hope I always make it to six.  The hens made muffled mumbles as I ran my hands over them, but so late in the day they’re half-asleep.  Such a peaceful, heart-rate-slowing activity.

Another favorite is holding Arwyn as I lay on the couch.  She stretches out from my knees to my throat, dredging up a deep, continuous purr and blink-blinking her eyes at me on occasion.  Yeah, that one’s good for the soul.  When I described this scene to a friend of mine, she looked startled and said I had just described what it felt like to hold her infant son as he fell asleep.  Just like, except that my cat will end our sessions by planting her hind feet in my gut and launching herself over the back of the couch.  No infants I’ve cared for ever offered such a finale.

Erin

Preheat the oven to 475 degrees. Place a baking stone in the oven or sprinkle a baking sheet or pizza pan with cornmeal. Toss together the zucchini, chiles, garlic, and lime juice in a small bowl. Taste, and season with salt and pepper. Dust a work surface with cornmeal, and place the pizza shell on it. Drizzle the olive oil over the shell, then spread the zucchini mixture on top. Top with the cheese, spreading it evenly over the zucchini. Scatter the parsley or cilantro over the cheese. If you are using a baking stone, sprinkle it with cornmeal. Transfer the pizza to the baking sheet, pizza pan, or baking stone. Bake the pizza until the crust is lightly golden and the cheese bubbly, 15 to 20 minutes. Meanwhile, cut the avocado in half, pit and peel it, and cut it lengthwise into thin slices. Remove the pizza from the oven, and let it rest for 5 minutes. Cut it into 8 slices, and top each one with avocado slices. Sprinkle salt, pepper and crushed red pepper over the pizza, and serve immediately, with lime wedges alongside.

* * *

I’ve made this twice in the past week, and Sydney and I really liked it.  It’s helped to ensure that none of our zucchini haul has gone to waste, and I get a lime fix.  Funny thing is, I’ve been cooking up a storm this past week just to keep up with the produce, but I can’t come up with a menu for a dinner we’re giving later this week for anything.  Inspiration comes and goes, I suppose.

Erin