being not doing

Beginning only a day or two after November’s national election, I started to have songs recur on my wee shuffle that I hardly listened to at all before then. Each and every one of them imprinted itself on my brain complete with an image connecting it with the incoming Congress, and I haven’t been […]

Tonight we had our fourth cookie date, barely squeezing it into the end of the week. We made Neil’s scalloped sugar cookies (p. 162). This is a variation on the standard sugar cookie recipe, that involves using confectioner’s sugar instead of granulated sugar, and using only the egg yolks instead of the whole […]

This past Wednesday we saw Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at the Kennedy Center, with Kathleen Turner and Bill Irwin, who won a Tony for his performance in 2005. I’ve always been curious about this play, and rented the film last month, but returned it only half-watched so as not to entirely spoil the […]

This past week, I’ve read a light (that sounds better than ‘trashy’) trilogy of recent British historical fiction, by Penny Vincenzi, the Spoils of Time books that begin with No Angel. They read like a cross between Judith Krantz novels (lots of independent, rich women with glamourous jobs and handsome lovers and husbands) and […]

On my last day in Portland, I visited the Classical Chinese Gardens, in historic Chinatown. It was really lovely, even in the winter, and I regretted not having my camera with me. I would have liked to have photos both of the archway into the the area — reminiscent of the one in […]

Our cookie making schedule was a little thrown off by my trip out of town, but we recovered, and last night was our third attempt. This week we made crackly cinnamon wafers (p. 71), and they were quite tasty.
My skill with the electric mixer is improving, although I must admit that I find myself […]

One of the surprising aspects of our farm share arrangement is the volume of turnips that we have received. I don’t remember if we knew ahead of time that turnips were a major crop, but if we did learn that, I didn’t really understand what that would mean. What it’s meant is that […]

Today will be my first day of volunteering at the BMC bookshop here in town. The store is a non-profit organization, run by volunteers, with the income generated going toward scholarships to my alma mater. You can imagine that a used bookshop is not in the position to provide full funding to students, […]

I just got back from my first trip to Portland, OR, courtesy of friends from college. I have to say that the dominant feature of the trip was not the mountains or the coast or Powell’s or the gazillion bridges. It was eating.
The day I traveled out, Thursday, I ate five meals. […]

I’m in Portland, OR, this weekend, and my internet access is spotty. Full updates when I get back.