To Do 8/5/10

To Do 8/5/10

1. Shake the dust from the novel
2. Start canning all these tomatoes my neighbor gives us
3. This is always a big job, but I love having a pantry full of pretty jars
4. Call the house sitter
5. Call Louise
6. Check on rent for a little storefront on Blue Ash Road in the rundown part of Deer Park
7. I don’t know what I’m gonna do with a little store, but why not?
8. I mean, I’ve never opened a little store
9. But I don’t want to sit there from 10-5, so expect poor business
10. Buy coffee. There’s only enough here for one more cup

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Brunch Delay

It’s early on a Sunday morning, and I’m sitting in my car at our church. What kind of a church isn’t open by 7:30 AM on a Sunday?

I’m here to get two big quiches out of the freezer so I can defrost them. I have salad enough to feed an army in the backseat. And here I am locked out until who knows when.

I thought about walking over to Awakenings for a cup of coffee, but I’m wearing a crisp white blouse…and you know what happens every time I look this good and drink a cup of coffee.

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DIY Cafe Mocha

You know how chilly it was yesterday, right? Out of the blue comes this cold blast of weather…which made me crave a cafe mocha, a craving I successfully fought off all day long. For some reason I kept wanting to sit outside at a little coffee shop with the dog and drink a cafe mocha. I don’t know why.

So…after dinner, after a bath, after watching golf on TV, I got up from the couch and pulled out my old espresso maker and made myself a cafe mocha. I mixed a little slurry of Hershey’s dark chocolate syrup with a dash of half-and-half in the bottom of my favorite espresso mug. Then I whipped about 1/4 cup of heavy cream and a pinch of sugar like Suzanne taught me. I poured the espresso into the slurry, topped it with my whipped cream, and shaved some flakes of Lindt chocolate on top, and voila!

And this is what Deb made for herself. I doubt there’s any chocolate left in the Hershey’s bottle.

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Morning

I wish this coffee would hurry up and get ready.

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To Do: 9/24/09

To Do:

1. Call those women who want to buy more Findlay Market books. I swear, I am getting sick of that book thing. 
2. Call Karen Heyl to discuss her sculpting our stone garden bench. She’s been promising to do it for a couple of years and now she’s home from an onsite project in Vail and has no other work lined up. Deb is resistant…thinks this will clutter up the yard. She thinks everything will clutter up the yard. She thought that about the garden, too; I have to gently persist. 
3. Round up some dumb prizes for the annual church picnic bingo game. My buddy Don and I call the craziest afternoon of bingo you’ll ever see. It gets a little wild. We are sort of hilarious together. And you put us in those hats we wear, and…well…it’s nuts. This Sunday from 1 to 4 at Lunken Field. You’re invited. 
4. Pick back up on that short story/novel. I dropped it. I got to that point at which I have never found always find myself. Where should it go from here? It’s sort of a panicky place. There it waits. Begging to go somewhere. But I’m the creator of it, so I have to take it wherever it needs to go. But I don’t know where it should go. How the hell should I know these things. Am I God? No. I am not God. Leave me alone, you stinking fiction. I love you. Quit looking at me. 
5. I need an office. Really. Either here or in some hole somewhere. A hole sounds kind of good. A hole with a desk and a chair and a coffee pot. 

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Ennui Busters

So, I wrote a quick reply yesterday afternoon to the old boyfriend and got the longest email in recorded history shortly thereafter…he attached a number of pictures. Yes, I can still see Randy in the pictures, but it’s hard to get past the thickness that’s sort of enveloped him.  I’ll write him a short note again, but I’ll wait a while. He went to great lengths about a lot of things including his airplanes but only briefly mentioned that, after two divorces,  he has for two years been living with a woman…no name, not a single detail…certainly no picture.  He’s a good writer and has a good sense of humor, though, and I still like that a lot; but…all in all…it gets me sort of tired.

Things that make me less tired:

1. coffee before 6 am
2. riding my bicycle
3. backpacking in the mountains
4. going to a movie
5. physical labor…things involving a tool with a nice wooden handle
6. crafting a word, a sentence, a paragraph
7. a very quick visit
8. water
9. riding my scooter with those wild people
10. home-grown tomatoes

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Percolations

The coffee didn’t filter perfectly this morning, and now there are little grounds floating on top. I tried to skim them off, but every several sips one slips in my mouth and I have to fish it out.

And the bathroom scale indicates that it’s time to lose a few pounds. I knew that was coming. Pizza three times this week and only one good bike ride.

Hmmmm. I’m getting an idea. (Not for you to know yet, though, Reader.)

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