Now Norma Knits

No-Alarm Friday

After I've been getting up at a certain hour for a while, I often forget to turn off my alarm on the weekend, or for the next day on which I do not have to get up.

This leads to much cursing and head-banging. 

Please take notice that I have REMEMBERED to turn off my alarm for tomorrow as I'm writing this, today as you're reading this, Friday for everyone else. 

And since 5 a.m. is even early for Mr. Jefferies, I'm quite sure he will let me sleep in too. 

The Thursday, It Is The Random

1.  Getting up at 5 a.m. every day this week is kicking my BUTT.

2.  Someone I was talking to recently said she had to nick something in the butt.  Oy.  Well, it rhymes with "kick in the butt," but I'm not sure how much more mangling one could do to that idiom.  I had a hard time keeping a straight face.

3. The red and blue scarf is coming along.  A few stripes a night, which is all I can manage this week, really do add up.

4.  Mr. Jefferies went to the DogZone Monday and Tuesday.  By Wednesday morning, he was all, "Uh, Grandma, just leave me alone.  I want to sleep ALLLL DAY."  So I let him.  After day care, he's so tired out he doesn't even want to go for a walk, but last night we had a nice walk after his all-day beauty sleep.  Today he'll have to go to day care, because both of our (my and David's) work days are so long.  It's a nice resource to have. 

5.  There are some amazing deals on Colourmart.com for cones of soft merino and cashmere yarns, and they have some delicious reds in DK weight.  For $24 or something, plus shipping, you can get 600 yards of scrumptious yarn for a red scarf if you were so inclined.  And why wouldn't you be?!

6.  I'm bummed because I was scheduled to cover a graduate-level course on Victorian fiction in July, and it fell through.  I would have loved it.

7.  I'm getting quite good at reading a CT scan, though.  Heh.  

8.  Last week I underwent conscious sedation.  I was scared because I don't like the idea of any kind of anesthesia.  Hello, I need my brain to be 110% and I've got no brain cells to spare.  I'd love to be able to SEE a patient (Laurie?  Can I come watch you work?  hee) under the "influence" of conscious sedation.  The thing that I found most fascinating about the experience is the way I was awakened.  I need explanation of this so I can understand it better.  I just heard a woman's voice say, "Norma, you can wake up now," and I did.  I opened my eyes, and I was back in my room, all in my normal position after a procedure for which I was definitely NOT in a normal position (routine colonoscopy, if you must know), cleaned up, covered up under a blanket, etc.  The part about it that is so fascinating to me is the whole, "Norma, you can wake up now."  It's so reminiscent of hypnosis.  And I remember zero about anything after the doctor in the procedure room, O.R., whatever you call it, said, "You can give her 5 and 10."  There was no, "Now count backwards from 10," like some people have told me happened to them.  Nothing! (or maybe I just forgot?) Interesting, interesting.  And I wonder what family secrets they got out of me while I was under. 

 

One Thousand Words

Terrier Tuesday

Hey-ho Readers!

My Alpha is rally-rally busy this week, and we have to get up super-early, so she said I can only post a few photos from my dad's photo album.  Hopefully next week she'll let me tell you a joke or show you my new toys or somethin'. 

Wasn't I a cute li'l duffer when I was little?

But now I'm big, and I just want to say, before Alpha pushes me off the computer, that I officially endorse the Red Scarf Project, and you know why? 



Coz red balls of yarn make good pillows.

Love, Mr. J.

Garden Passages

Geez, didn't this gardening season just start?  And yet already some things have gone by -- lots of perennial flowers are finished for this season (not that I really even notice them anymore), I harvested my last load of asparagus for the season on July 4th and made a soup with it -- asparagus, young onions, one potato, and celery, lightly sauteed and then simmered in homemade chicken stock 'til tender.  Then I added a roasted/cracked peppercorn-coated 8-ounce piece of salmon filet (from Costco), cut into chunks, and let the whole lot simmer for a few more minutes.  I finished it with a couple of tablespoons of half & half cream -- just enough to give it some heartiness and character, without unduly increasing the fat content. 

Since the weather was so cool and breezy, soup was just what we wanted for dinner.  David: "I love summer when you're not working." (because we eat so well) 

Imagine that:  We wanted soup on July 4th.  But now we say goodbye to asparagus for the season.  I've decided to let the asparagus ferns grow now, and let the roots gain strength for next year. 

The last remaining strawberries have been foraged by something other than me, and they are gone for the season.  I saw a chipmunk with a guilty red-smeared look on his face. 

But all is not lost.  I picked the first bowl of sweet, delectable black raspberries...

...and eked out enough rose petals for one last batch of jam, along with a few leaves from the now-gasping-and-ready-to-bolt spinach plants. 

Sadly, the rose petal jam was a failure.  I did not have on hand any of the pectin I normally use, so I decided to try a different, supposedly healthier, kind I had in my pantry that I'd bought at a "healthy" store.  You are supposed to be able to use less sugar with it -- or, it says, use as much or as little sugar as you want in your jam.  It has a different setting chemistry, so the standard amount of sugar is not required.  Well, I learned the hard way: Not only is it not required, but these particular setting agents impart a sweet flavor themselves.  This jam was all but inedible.  It was a lot more complicated to make. It was cloudy, gloppy, the wrong texture, and too sweet. The lovely lemony-fruity-rosy tang of the normally orgasmic jam was completely lost.  I had to throw it in the compost. 

*sob*

Bye-bye rose petal jam for 2009.  Maybe I'll luck out and a few more petals will bloom, but I'm doubtful.  The rosehips look plump and beautiful right now, and the damn Japanese beetles have already begun to show up. 

But is it time to get discouraged?  No way!  I return to the garden to harvest a small cabbage and several large leaves of kale that are ready.   I soak some dried Great Northern beans with the intention of making some bean/kale/cabbage/everything-but-the-kitchen-sink soup.

While I'm in the garden, I notice that the new bed I seeded just under a week ago has germinated well and is going strong with arugula, stir-fry mix, Romaine, and Dolloff beans. 



I poke further.  I find baby zucchini:



And baby cucumbers!



and green tomatoes (sorry, no photo).

I pick a handful of peas ...


...that I eventually throw in the delicious vegetable soup.

I pick a bouquet of parsley, sage and rosemary:



I chop them up very fine, with one garlic scape.  I add them to some sunflower oil, unpasteurized apple cider vinegar, and white wine, and add some fresh ground black pepper and rock sea salt, to use as a marinade for chicken breasts.

The rest of the bottle of wine looks lonely. 

I pour myself a glass. 

I eat a couple of pieces of cheese and think about the lost rose petal jam, the lost strawberries, and...

... other losses.

A friend stops by to return our truck, which he borrowed to bring his parasailing stuff down to the lake.  He loves the garden, and I know he and his wife like to cook and eat well, so I cut him some broccoli from the garden.

I pour myself anotehr glass ofwine.

And aontehr.

.

Teh ned.