I'm not a connoisseur when it comes to coffee. A good, everyday brew is all I ever really looked for. I have been drinking Eight O'Clock for years. My folks drank it. It's decent, and the stronger roasts aren't scorched to the point of skunkiness.

I cite Balloon Juice more than the other lefty blogs I read because in addition to politics, they also talk about pets and food and coffee, which pretty much define my life, so. A few months ago, John Cole was seaching for a decent everyday coffee, and some of us rec'd Eight O'Clock, and others rec'd Peet's. Still others rec'd Community Coffee, a brand I'd never heard of. So I checked out the site, poked around. Saw that prices were relatively reasonable, and ordered a couple bags of medium-dark roast.

I really liked it. So much so that when I tried to go back to Eight O'Clock...

So. I ordered some more bags of CC last week. Received them yesterday. Their regular medium-dark roast, along with their special Kenya and Kona varieties. Had a cup of Kenya this morning. Wine-y, yes. A bit of an acquired taste, I think, but I do like it.

And I joined their coffee club. I had received the Kona as a freebie for joining. And they gave me a travel mug as an extra thank you gift.

Last weekend, as part of the "Kris gets her life back" celebration, I baked a whole batch o' Jay Lake's web-famous Ginger Chocolate Chip cookies. Just had one with a fresh cup of Kenya. There are worse ways to start the morning.

I may have mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I pulled up my single zucchini plant. It had improved in appearance as the weather warmed, and it flowered quite a few times. No little zucchinis, however. It might have improved as the summer wore on, but I lacked the patience to wait.

My squash isn't all that great, either. It is huge, and it is producing a number of squash. But only two out of 10 or so have gone on to grow large enough to pick and eat. The others haven't grown more than a couple of inches long. At that point, they stop growing and rot at the flower end. The couple of squash that did grow to a reasonable size--6-7 inches--had to be picked today because they were starting to rot at the flower end as well. I had read that squash are ready to pick when the flower falls off. Well, in the case of my plant the flowers are dried up, but they're not falling off.

I did have one of the squash for dinner, cut up and roasted and tossed with some leftover spaghetti. I liked it, but not enough to plant more next year.

In other news, the cantaloupe "vine" is about 5-6" long and has 2 or 3 blossoms. And if even 3/4 of the green tomatoes go on to ripen, I will be making freezer sauce enough to fill the freezer to the top.

Fireflies.

I love fireflies.

Swiped from dancinghorse.

I'm not sure about this. I like Tom Wolfe's work, but I didn't pick the snazzy suit. I picked the jeans, cord shirt, and baseball cap.

http://roflquiz.com/r/55801/

Tom Wolfe

Ah, the life of a wall flower. You get to hang out with the most interesting people - radio DJs, hot rodders, hippies, Hell's Angels, Wall Street tycoons, frat boys - and are completely happy putting them into the spotlight. You're completely happy hanging back with your martini and your little notebook, jotting down all your little observations, in sight but out of mind. Sure, everyone at the party knows who you are - but do they know the real you? And, more importantly, if you want to fade into the background, what's with the bright white suit?

I don't know which member of my Merry Pair dispatched the squirrel that I found the Junior Member toying with when I arrived home from work. Given that she was the one toying with it, I have my suspicions, but we may never be sure.

Decent night's sleep, but still tired. Part of it is due to book hangover. But I also trimmed bushes yesterday, and while this isn't usually considered a particularly tiring activity...I guess it is when I do it.

Three shrubs in the backyard--a spirea and two hollies--badly needed trimming. The spirea grows like a weed, and was simply overgrown. The hollies proved more complicated. They sit right under the gutters, so they get dripped on in the winter when snow melts off the roof. Then that melt freezes, and kills branches. In addition, the things had done what older evergreens tend to do in that even though they looked full, the middles had become overgrown tangles of bare branches that required a lot of thinning. So now, instead of two boxy hollies, I have two skeletal if-I'm-lucky-they'll-fill-out-and-do-the-bonsai-thing hollies. I expect it will work. Evergreens are pretty forgiving when it comes to hackage.

Anyway, as a consequence of all the bending and crouching and clipping with the BIG clippers, legs and back are stiff and right arm feels weird from bicep to thumb. By weird, I mean cramping. This is fun, and a great way to start the week.

Tonight's excitement will consist of laundry, because clean underwear is important. Not to mention, well, clean.

This entry was originally posted at http://ksmith.dreamwidth.org/642022.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

How could I have let myself go for so long without searching for "Man on the Silver Mountain" on iTunes?

It's freshman year at the University of South Florida all over again...

Three more showed up in my inbox yesterday, in addition to the bunch I already had to give away. Someone claimed one of those a few weeks ago, but never sent their email addy so I could send it to them--could you please ping me again?

And anyone else who wants one, post here or email me.

Despair Inc makes laptop skins now.

It's like potato chips. I can't pick just one...

I've picked all four kohlrabi that I planted. I doubt I will plant any next year, but they were a nice thing to try.

It's a member of the cabbge family. Some folks eat it raw, and I found a nice recipe for kohlrabi-apple slaw that I may make. It can also be roasted, boiled, mashed, and is used as a substitute for cabbage in some German recipes.

Along with the actual bulb, you can also eat the greens. I wasn't planning on doing that at first.Then I thought oh, why not? So after I pulled the bulbs out of the ground, I trimmed and washed the leaves, then hunted for recipes. Settled for this one, because it could get any simpler--boil, add toasted sesame oil and soy sauce. Had some of the cooked greens with leftover meatloaf and mashed potatoes. They are such a deep, rich green. In taste, they reminded me strongly of brussels sprouts.

I'll have the rest tomorrow with roast chicken.

I have time to cook!

I don't have to write tonight!

By way of Balloon Juice. Stories like this amaze me. The sublety and sensitivity of the training.

Like any other golden retriever seeking a treat, Tuesday nudged his owner's hand with his snout one recent morning and waited expectantly.
Luis Carlos Montalvan got up from a chair in his small Brooklyn apartment and walked to the kitchen. Tuesday followed close behind, eyes fixed on a white cabinet. The retriever sat alertly as Mr. Montalvan, an Iraq war veteran with severe post-traumatic stress disorder, reached for a vial of pills, lined a half-dozen on the table and took them one by one.

The dog had gotten what he wanted: When the last pill was swallowed, he got up and followed his master out of the kitchen, tail wagging.

I am so far behind on house and outside stuff. I haven't mowed the lawn in 2 weeks--I think it's about 6-7 inches high. Tomorrow, I will do the front. I will then either do the back as well, or weed the front. Either way, lawn will be cut this weekend.

Burning bush on corner of the house needs major whackage. Weeding. Laundry. Vacuuming. Bake cookies. While I worked, King tore up a rope toy, so there are threads all over the living room. Today, I had to roust Gaby off my bed, so there is mud on the sheets. Change sheets. I want to plant some flowers, but that may need to wait until next week.

I can't do everything in one weekend.

I had the worst mashed potato craving. I grocery shopped, bought potatoes, sour cream, chives. Had mashed spud with leftover meatloaf that I goosed with RoTel tomatoes. Salad.

I don't have to write tonight.

-30-

The thing about the homestretch of this particular book is that I have known what it would be for so long, but I never seemed to get to the point of actually writing it. It's like when you pass a construction site every day. Big! New! Thing! Here! Coming Soon! And then nothing for three months, even though the weather is great and the equipment and materials are sitting there. Every so often, something moves around and you think Whoa--today's the day. And what follows is another month of nothing.

Well, I am finally there. I know what is going on with 3 POVs. Scenes blocked in my head. Dialogue. I've been sketching things in, back and forth. Snip here, snip there, as it occurs to me. Blocking it out, putting the easy stuff down. Otherwise I'll get hung up on a word or phrase or passage waaay upstream, and I'll spend too much time messing with it when I should just get on with things. I have a great deal of writing to do over the next 12 or so hours. It will be a very late night. More like an early morning. Celebration of this damned thing being done will include sleeping.

So different, this rewrite. So different. It didn't help that the &*%$#@ thing didn't really start to work itself out until end of May/early June. Needs to be done in early July! Hello!

This really isn't fun. Even though I like the story. This isn't how I would like to work, ideally. Not even semi-ideally. It's how I fit current iteration of writing brain inside current iteration of Life, and all I can say is that I am lucky that people are patient with me.

Take a scene of which you are so very proud, a scene that pleased you so much when you wrote it, a scene that told you all you needed to know about a certain character...and then hack it up and mine it for the bits you need now because the bulk of it no longer fits and sanding down the edges to fit just isn't going to work.

Firecracker angst last night. King grew restless and tried to crawl into my lap as I worked. I cleared junk off the couch so he could lay beside me, but that didn't work for long because he wanted to rest his front legs across my lap. Then he wanted to stand behind me and climb over the back of the couch, and that wasn't going to work, either. He finally settled in behind the couch.

In the meantime, I had invited Gaby up on the couch in the interest of fairness. She curled up beside me, and things stayed quiet until the boomers got real loud and King awoke and tried to crawl in my lap again. I finally fled to my room and closed the door. Bumping and scraping were heard as both dogs settled down in front of the door. The hall was dark cave-like enough that King settled, and I managed to work for a couple of hours.

The odd boomer again this morning. King is again behind the couch. Woofs have been heard. Dreaming.

Gaby, meanwhile, paced from bed to bed, then stood in front of the couch and stared at me. I moved the tissue box--allergies--and up she came. Curled up in a couple of different spots before finding the right one. She's fast asleep, too. I have a feeling I will regret letting her get away with this, but. If they do something once and they like it, it's a tradition.

Not so typical 4th-type weather. 60s, with rain possible. A couple of the strawberries look pickable, and the tomatoes have exploded--nothing close to ripe yet, but those Adventures in Canning that I was anticipating so eagerly may come to pass after all.

And now to work...

The Hawks signed Mairan Hossa and Tomas Kopecky from the Wings. They lost Nikolai Khabibulin to the Oilers--I don't know about this. He was awfully good this year. And they may lose Marty Havlat because of the salary cap. He was the Hawks' leading scorer this past season. I guess there's a chance they can keep him. We'll see.

So they lost the Bulin Wall. I hope they have their sights set on a goalie, because I don't have much faith in Huet.

Entering July tomorrow. It's been varying grades of horrible for the last couple of years--lost Mom in 2007, and Mickey last year. The fact that it's my birthday month has been lost. I don't even care.

I hope this July is uneventful.

When I ordered HDTV from my cable company, they mistakenly installed a DVR box instead, which I discovered when I received a letter noting that they were going to start charging me the higher fee for that box. I phoned them, they found they made a mistake, and offered to let me keep it at the HDTV price. OK, I said, but I don't record shows.

I do now.

So easy to set up. I recorded a Dr Who ep on Sunday, and tonight I'll be recording the NOVA Music and the Brain episode while I watch Rachel Maddow.

Nice.