That Time I Made Cookies

A while back, I made these rosemary butter cookies and they were the best.

Basically I never bake—for a number of reasons, including the fact that I cannot be held responsible for having baked goods in the house. If there're cookies, I will eat them ALL. If there's a sheet of brownies, I will eat it ALL. This isn't that out of the ordinary, I suspect.

Anyway, I made ’em for a garden party, AKA a BBQ, so they were someone else's problem at the end of the night.

I'm always really happy when I get to cook with rosemary because it was the first plant I installed in my garden when I became a homeowner seven (crikey!) years ago. The thing has beyond flourished—it's a fucking tree!

The rock and the hard place here is that the dough might be better than the cookies—but the cookies are still really, really good. Do what you can with this conundrum.

Hates 9.17.13

Slow-moving drains. No amount of mental effort can protect me from watching the scummy white foam of my toothpaste spit as it slowly swirls the drain and—once it finally ebbs—picturing the loogie's sluggish passage through pipes clogged with hair, dark grime, and mucus residue.

In-town driving. Highway driving gives you that sec to relax and feel the pull of the open road, but start-and-stop shifting from here to there—suffocating. It makes you wanna get a horse and ride it along a river watching leaves drop slowly from graceful branches.

Back hurt. I have a hot poker between my shoulder blades that talks of stress both new and old. Nothing to do but hot shower and cold wood floor.

Empty printer cartridges. Who even uses their printer these days? But when you need it, ya need it. And that's when you ascertain that the black ink's all gone, which is why your boarding pass is just a pale ghost on white paper. Just like last time. When you vowed to buy a new cartridge. And forgot.

Peeling garlic. Clumsy fingers fumbling with paper-thin skin, which flakes off and sticks everywhere, while precious minutes tick by and you're only half way through the first clove. It's upsetting.

 

Island Time

It's Indian summer! The heat's very close, like a dog panting down your neck.

But! The idea of fall was already loosed upon us. Last week—with the season's first real rain.

I couldn't remember the last time I'd gone to the river because I didn't know it was gonna be the last time—I didn't even get to say goodbye! Closure is what I needed, so I planned a Sauvie Island river excursion for a steamy mid-week day. We sat in the warm sand and dove in the warm water, and our plastic wine cups shined like jewels in the sun.

But! It wasn't summer. The sun didn't burn me, the sky was a different color blue altogether, and the heat was cut with a pesky little breeze whispering of fog and falling leaves. Still though, it was a lovely day and a lovely drive home, and I totally wouldn't hate living out there on the island in one of those homes where water laps against your yard that are going for around 3 mill these days.

The Stories We Tell

Watched this doc by Canadian director Sarah Polley last night, an accounting of her family story—how in her late 20s she discovered that the guy she called "dad" was not her biological father (her real dad being, as all errant trysts are, an actor her mum worked with once on a play in Montreal).

But the movie isn't really about wayward romance in Montreal (which is a fine topic!), it's about how we remember stuff from our lives, and how we retell it, and the subtle, important ways it changes in the retelling. Polley's mom died of cancer when Sarah was just a lil tot, and because she can't tell her own story, Sarah pieces it together through interviews with the peeps who were close to her. The story weaves and weaves, becoming a strange tapestry built from every different color of "I always thought" perceptions and "I think what happened" memories.

Anyway, good stuff. Is there anything richer and more fraught than a family history ... even yours?!

Favorites 9.6.13

Dog paws. Like chocolate-chip muffins built of fur. Hold them and feel their warmth. Sniff ’em and catch the scent of salt coming off them.

A clean white shirt. Tomorrow, sure, there'll be a pizza-sauce stain and one of those tiny tears from my belt buckle, but today—a sense of orderliness and new beginnings.

A cold glass of carrot juice. For years I've eschewed juice in favor of eating the actual fruit/vegetable involved. But after a long, hot day when you collapse into a corner chair and shout about how your dogs are barkin, a small, cool glass of carrot juice will revive your wilted spirit.

This video: I decree that these bears pole dance better than the girls at the Magic Garden.