friday felicitations

Happy Friday!

For those of you in the States, enjoy the long weekend! We're supposed to have some pretty days here in the Northeast once Earl blows through.


(photo by Molly | Orangette, on Flickr)

five senses friday #8

seen

dusk, arriving earlier these days

heard

Joshua Bell's recording of Vivaldi's Four Seasons. I've been doing a lot of writing at work and can't listen to songs with lyrics (because the words interfere with the words in my brain). The energy and contrasts of Vivaldi, however, make for excellent writing music.

smelled

the astringent aroma of lemons

tasted

this surprisingly good pizza. I especially like this variety, too. Can't comment on the other ones because sadly, my grocery store doesn't carry them. You can tell life is busy when I start eating frozen food frequently.

felt

heat rising from the pavement. After last week's cool days, the temperature soared back up into the mid-90s this week. I'm eagerly anticipating fall.

farewell, daisy

Last night, my mom let me know that our family dog, Daisy, had died over the weekend. She was an 11-year-old beagle mix and truly one of the sweetest dogs I've ever met (and I've met a lot of them now that I volunteer at an animal shelter).

Like many dogs, Daisy loved to eat. When she was getting hungry, she'd leave one of her beloved stuffed dog toys in her empty bowl as if offering up a trade. She had discriminating tastes, however. My parents introduced her to table scraps as a treat, and once she knew such manna existed, she refused to eat her dry dog food unless it included a morsel of something enticing on top. Despite her love of people food, she never acquired a liking for the day-old bagels that the local bagel shop gave away for dogs; she first regarded them with suspicion and then batted them around like toys.

Even more than food, Daisy loved our family. I remember once needing to keep her safe and out from under foot while some sort of work was being done on the house or yard (she was a strictly outdoor dog). I brought out a book and parked the two of us in a lawn chair out of harm's way, and she sat contentedly in my lap for hours.

When my parents recently moved from New Mexico to Hawaii, we were dismayed to discover, far too late, that Hawaii requires a blood test demonstrating response to the rabies vaccine no fewer than 120 days prior to a pet's entry into the state. The alternative is to place the pet in quarantine on arrival for up to 120 days in a state-maintained facility, at the owner's expense.

Mom and Dad decided to leave Daisy behind rather than uproot her and subject her to the quarantine. I was rather angry and disappointed at first, arguing that they should have the blood test performed, leave her with friends until the 120 days had elapsed, and then go back for her. (I know, not everyone is as crazy about their pets as I am.) In the end, however, in a wonderful twist of fate, Jeffrey, the guy who bought our house, offered to take Daisy with it. Not exactly a typical real estate transaction!

Jeffrey turned out to be a great big softie who, soon after moving in, felt sorry for Daisy's having to endure the desert summer heat and brought her inside - after first asking my parents if it was okay (even though the house was now his!). He sent periodic updates to my parents, describing how Daisy and he would sit in the living room and watch TV together. I am sad that none of us was with her at the end of her life, but I am really grateful that she spent her last days in her familiar home, in the company of a kind and loving person.


(photo by Stoltze, on Flickr)

benevolent postcard studio: august

For the August BPS mailing, I designed a blueberry lemon postcard.

I used my scallop scissors (because really, they should be employed at all possible opportunities) and sewed a bright lemony border to frame some Haymarket blueberries.

On the back, I printed a recipe for blueberry lemon bread. And since my postcard was headed to a metric-system-using country (in other words, someplace other than the U.S., Liberia, or Burma), I remembered this time to convert the units for the ingredients.

You should not be at all impressed by my unit-converting abilities. I discovered allrecipes.com offers an extremely handy U.S. to metric system converter.

Piret, the recipient, let me know that the postcard reached her in Estonia by leaving a lovely comment right here on this blog.

weekend notes #27

How quickly the weekend flew by!

The pretty girl pictured first is currently up for adoption at the animal shelter. Her name is Firefly, which suits her perfectly as she's tiny and bright-eyed. She's so sweet and friendly that I can't believe someone hasn't taken her home yet.

I read Mockingjay into the wee hours of Saturday morning but stopped halfway through because it's so intense. I'll definitely finish, but in the meantime I'm taking a breather, reading a beloved and comforting favorite novel by Lisa Kleypas.

My ballet teacher has received a wonderful professional opportunity that, sadly, requires she give up our Saturday class (happily, she'll still be teaching us on Tuesday evenings). This past Saturday, Celeste and I threw a little surprise party for her after class. Celeste brought a bottle of red wine, and I baked a devil's food cake with sour cream chocolate frosting. I forgot to snap a photo until I was on my way to class, so you see it here in the box I used to transport it.

Work will be busy over the next few weeks, so I'll be posting only on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays until things quiet down. I'll miss writing here and will be back full-time as soon as I can!  

Friday felicitations

Happy Friday!

Hope you get to read something fabulous this weekend! Mockingjay, the last novel in Suzanne Collins' phenomonal Hunger Games trilogy, was just delivered yesterday. I'm so excited!


(photo by abre/tus/ojos, on Flickr)

five senses friday #7

seen

urban turkeys. Five of them! I had my first turkey sighting a couple years ago and learned that quite a few of them hang around the city. They kind of scare me because I've seem them chase people around (although to be fair to the turkeys, usually only with provocation). These guys (and gals?) were sitting peacefully in the midst of our busy medical campus.

heard

rain. Lots and lots of rain. It fell constantly from Monday through Wednesday.

smelled

the tanginess of devil's food cake batter

tasted

frozen hash browns and multi-grain waffles with fresh blueberries and plenty of ReddiWip. [Have you ever noticed that the degree to which a food's name deviates from normal spelling is inversely proportional to how natural or healthful it is? Huh.] For dinner. Sometimes you just gotta go with what you feel like. At least there were blueberries. And the waffles were multi-grain.

felt

my fuzzy slippers, for the first time since early spring. Some of the mornings have had a wonderfully autumnal coolness lately.