Life of Wry

As long as I’ve got the camera out and set on macro, I figured I may as well shoot these.  They were part of last night’s dessert at the quarterly gathering of the Dining Divas.  I didn’t make them, but there were a few left over, so I brought a couple home for the guys.

The Dining Divas dinners, it seems, are morphing from a generalized theme of healthy-light-easy to specific cultural cuisine themes… like the early 20th c English theme in January (aka Downton Abbey) and last night’s Brazilian theme.

I was the vegetable person last night so made Brazilian collard greens. Serviceable. I was still in the light-easy-healthy mode, thinking that was still supposed to be driving our menu choices, but, actually, we decided last night to shift away from that and focus instead on interesting, entertainment-worthy dishes.. with maybe a slight nod to healthy and locally-available ingredients.

The above were insanely good (if a bit traumatized in transport). They are mostly sweetened, condensed milk, heated up and thickened on the stove, mixed with some cocoa and butter. After cooling, the mixture can be formed into balls and rolled in whatever sprinkles you have.

The Brazilians love their sweetened, condensed milk; it’s in just about every dessert they make.  Rissa also made a tres leches cake–usually not one of my favorites for its wet, fluffy texture (like tiramisu, yuck). But this dessert, also made with plenty of sweetened, condensed milk, was also in the insane category. When I’m off my current slim-down program (I’ll write about this later), I’m going to make it.

Back to the above, they’re called Brigadeiros and are considered the national truffle of Brazil, extremely common and popular, though I don’t remember seeing them when we were there in 2009.  A casual search turns up thousands of hits and recipes (all the same).  Definitely worth making.

Jim had a good summary of this early morning’s events:

The scene: 1 a.m. Sunday, March 16, 2014. Lights out, I’m asleep, Kari’s playing Spider on her phone. Enter The Boy.

“Dad, I think I might have swallowed some broken glass.”

“Say what?”

“I dropped the glass in my bathroom and it broke, but I drank from it anyway.”

“You drank water from a glass you just broke?”

“Yeah.”

“Did that actually seem like a good idea at the time?”

“Not really, but I didn’t think there’d be any pieces left in it. When I finished drinking I saw some little bits in the bottom.”

Factoid 1: The wait time to get a Kaiser advice nurse on the line at 1:00 a.m. on a Sunday is about 20 minutes.

The nurse asked the usual litany of questions. “Is he having trouble breathing?”  [“No, he’s having trouble locating his common sense.”] (I didn’t actually say that; in fact, Kari was the one on the phone. I was the one under the covers doing the facepalm thing, wondering if there was a rewind button somewhere that I could push. The owner’s manual that came with this child unit doesn’t have a chapter on late-night glass ingestion.)

Factoid 2: Swallowed glass rarely causes any problems. The size, shape and orientation of the piece has to be just right to lacerate anything. Add in the fact that the tongue is adept at detecting even very small foreign objects before they can be swallowed, and the risk is low. Present, but low.

The nurse consulted a doc, who (when he finished doing his own facepalm) advised monitoring The Boy for any unusual symptoms and calling back for a consult in the morning. (The normal people’s morning, the one where the big yellow ball is up in the sky.)

The boy goes to bed, and all’s reasonably well again. Except that now it’s 1:30 a.m. and I’m wide awake. I read until 3:00, when I decided that remaining awake any longer would be a really bad idea. Got up at 7:30 (normal people’s morning), checked in with The Boy (he’s fine), and will now see how long I make it without a nap.

Welcome to Sunday!

* Completely unrelated to this post, but I couldn’t resist the title. It was the name of a poem a classmate of Peter’s wrote in 4th grade when Senora Marchand taught a poetry unit. Each kid wrote his/her own poem, which ended up in a published, hard-bound book. The highlight of the unit was presentation day: the kids transformed their classroom into a “beat cafe,” and, one by one stood on a makeshift stage and recited their own poems for the invited patrons (parents). They offered a menu of drinks and snacks, and served as waiters and waitresses, all the while decked out in their best beat-poet attire–sunglasses, black turtleneck sweaters, beads, berets. A particularly troubled kid wrote and presented a startling poem that described, in disturbing terms, his life experience. I’ll never forget it. I hope his home life has improved since then.

Offered to staff a table for a couple hours this morning at Farmer’s Market. Took the early shift. Really enjoyed the pre-crowd hour, when the only ones there were the vendors setting up, including, thankfully, Mark the coffee guy.

Had sunrise chats with other volunteers, Susan Lovenburg (great to hear her take on the recent school board/volleyball coach drama, too), Naomi, Anke, Scott, Tia, Robert and John.  (Lots of folks.)

Here’s our table:

I haven’t done any work with the local Brady Campaign nor with Moms Demand Action (for Gun Sense in America… I will never get that name right… and shake my head at such a horribly wordy name), but deeply support their efforts.  I had added my name to a list a few months back offering to help as needed and was contacted about tabling today.

Not likely to do that again, not because I’m not completely committed to their work but just because I’m not articulate enough on the ins and outs of the issues to be useful at the table (and so many others are). Though it’s funny, when people see the booth, they laser right over and say, “Where do I sign?” “What do you need?” and pretty much do whatever you suggest. The petitions and letters practically sign themselves. People are that passionate about the effort.

Except for the ones who aren’t.

Anyway, in a nutshell, today was about:

1) Signing a letter to Sheriff Prieto to thank him for his efforts to sustain current policies on the issuing of concealed weapons permits. Currently, Yolo County requires you to demonstrate a legitimate need before they’ll give you a permit to conceal a weapon (for example, you are under threat from an unstable ex, do business in a risky part of town, stuff like that). A federal 3-judge panel, ruling on a case in San Diego, said that was unconstitutional. A number of counties in California are now being challenged on that policy, including ours. It’s a reasonable control and Prieto wants to keep it in place, so he’s going to bat for Yolo on this.

2.) Signing a letter to Governor Brown in support of SB 53 that would put into place a number of reasonable controls on obtaining guns.  (I really should have picked up the literature we had on this one…. see, inarticulate!)

A person could also sign up to be on the email list for both local organizations and/or get a button. Their objective is to table regularly (four times per year) simply to keep a steady presence in the community and keep the issues in front of people.  There is not much else that happens.

But the cause is important. Reason must prevail.

Love this shot.. it’s Jim doing the thing he loves most in the whole entire world: hanging out in his garage tinkering on projects, of which–no matter what–he’s got a million.   

Sneaky me… I shot this from the bathroom, probably 40′ away, through the window, zoomed all the way in. 

He’s drilling something. He often is. And shavings are probably flying. Which is totally okay by him. 

To my eye, the garage a messy, dirty, chaotic place… I wither at the prospect of going in there to find anything. But to him, it’s an organized trove of treasures and pleasures. He knows where everything is and seems not to mind (in the least) that he might have to ascend a ladder or move seven things to get to something else. He also seems not to mind working on a table top that is cluttered and crammed with a thousand other things (seriously, piles that tower over him). No exaggeration, there is not a single clean surface in the entire garage (not counting the washer and dryer).  

Important stuff can be found suspended from rafters, hung on walls, tucked into crannies, at the top of teetering stacks. Some stuff is even in cabinets and drawers. Labeled. 

His space. He loves it. 

iPhone group shot in a fluorescent gym… not the best photo.. but it’s the best I’ve got of tonight’s first-ever DHS Baseball Pasta Feed. This is the end of the evening–after dinner, after dessert, after the performance by the Madrigal Choir.

Here is a better, more frontal shot, courtesy Wes Young:

It’s a spontaneous group shot of the JV team, posing with John Ariola, the varsity center fielder who also sings in the choir.  A bit of an odd mashup tonight, but that’s what happens when the head coach’s son has a foot in two worlds. Made for some nice entertainment, for sure.

Pictured: Jacob Avila, Peter, Hunter Jury, Gavin Cosgrave, Mason Shorts, Tyler Gibson, John Ariola, Gabe Gutierrez, James Richardson, Noah Riffle, Daniel Henrickson, Alex Timmons, Solomon Biers-Ariel and Ray Young. (Not pictured: Jake Guerrero and Pierce Tujo).  A solid group of young men.

Here’s a pre-dinner shot of part of the decoration crew:

Me, Colleen, Dianna and Corlyn.

Riding home, Jim and I talked about the dinner, how nice it was to provide a bit of recognition for the boys and for the program. As it is just about everywhere, football is, inexplicably to me, the center of the universe. Basketball’s not far behind, and baseball’s sort of an also-ran. That is a volume of its own.

Having the JV and varsity together gave the younger players some context and something to aspire to. It’s not that they don’t see this on a regular, daily basis, but the JV is rarely celebrated in this way. Most of the newspaper coverage is for varsity. And at DHS, all roads lead to varsity; it seems freshman and JV are largely feeder programs for the varsity, with all the attention going there. In the end, relatively few guys will get all the way to the top and many, many will fall by the wayside.  So it’s nice for JV to get a little limelight. They work so hard, every day; they deserve to be noticed.

There were also a bunch of alumni players who came and were introduced which was a great idea and a way to convey history and the boys’ place in it. The principal showed up and a former superintendent (Floyd, of course!), which was appreciated, and added a measure of dignity to the affair.

Here’s one more shot.. the dessert table and some of the varsity players:

Pictured: Hudson, Nate, Ted, Trey, Quentin, Ryan, Josh, Matt, Walter.

All and all, a nice first-ever dinner.  A tradition is born.

Obviously, I’ve hit a patch of busy where blog posts are barely manageable.  Bear with me.

These are the kinds of non-routine activities that seem to have eaten time so far in 2014:

– Out of town trips: PV, Tahoe, Dillon, Napa. Check. Behind us. (Also behind us..maybe.. the relentless calorie-rich meals. Fruit salad and vegetable juice, anyone?)

– Baseball season: two to three games per week, which include scorekeeping and article writing for each, with a weekly Tuesday-noon deadline… and re-familiarizing myself with both iScore and sports-writer-like jargon. Almost hitting my stride here, still a bit cross-eyed.

– Emergency gardening as a result of busted sewer pipes: relocating and babying 50-75 brand new plants while our backyard was trenched. So much more to go on this one.

– Bit of volunteering: the upcoming launch of the yearlong, 12-cities Compassion Tour and a new thing…driving for the Interfaith Rotating Winter Shelter. Neighbor June is an ongoing project (just this moment, a call to go check out her blinking microwave oven).

– Editing: reviewing the 450+ page second draft of a friend’s third novel (this is the big one, says friend). The perfect volunteer job.

– My efudex, Peter’s acutane, Jim’s implant: research and implementation thereof.

– And I guess I need to count the hours and hours and hours spent driving around Yolo County.  As of now, it’s slowed to just a few trips a week, but for a while there, it was daily and/or nightly–motivated, obsessive new driver that Peter was/is.

A routine day seems elusive.

And then there’s the time it takes to just keep up. Everyone’s life, I know. I’m just saying. But hey, it’s spring and there is just nothing like 75 degree soft breezes and flowers.  So the walks lately have been particularly heavenly.

This was one of the drippy, grey mornings earlier this week.. and is a shot of one of the otters on Putah Creek. Under the nearer of the two redbuds. It was an otter, but I missed it. So I also have that to look forward to one of these days.

The secret to getting your teenager to eat more vegetables:

Let him play with the juicer.  

Tonight’s effort: carrots, celery, beets, oranges, apples.  

So good!

The plumbers come. They dig a trench two feet wide by three feet deep and, let’s say, about fifty feet long.

Give or take.

They pile the dirt in neat stacks along both sides, but mostly the north side. A week goes by while they futz about in the trench, extracting this and that from our sewer pipe. In fact, they replace the pipe. (This is all old news, I understand.) A tiny bit of rain falls, but nothing to speak of.  

Today, done with the installation and inspections, they set about to return the dirt to its hole. All the dirt. And, in fact, they do this, but after the piles have been completely leveled, we find ourselves short. There is not sufficient dirt to fill the hole completely:

It seems we have a remaining trench about 14″ wide, 6″ deep, and now about 40-45 feet long. 

So, it’s a fair question, the question being, Where’d the rest of the dirt go?

Peter and I were out driving this afternoon.. a frequent and regular theme until the boy gets his driver’s license. We have covered so much territory hereabouts. Truth be told, road driving is not really what he needs. We should be spending most of our time in downtown, navigating busy streets, parking all manner of ways, avoiding pedestrians… but he just loves to hit the open road (which gives us some nice time to talk, so I’m not complaining).

Today, when he asked where we should go, I said, “surprise me,” and told him to just drive wherever his heart desired, but make sure we’re back by 3:15 (about an hour).

Out on about Highway 16, somewhere west of Madison (I bet you didn’t know anything was out there), we came upon this:

Below the Rainbow Ranch logo, the sign reads, “Not Gay.. Just Happy.”

What do we think of this disclaimer?

Check this out:

This is what the plumbers finally found, after a couple days of rooting around (as it were) in our sewer pipes. It’s a dense mass of roots and sludge that had, over the years, swelled to fully fill the dimensions of the pipe that was supposed to be carrying out all our household waste. Somewhat unbeknownst to us, until it was very beknownst, our flow was seriously compromised. 

It turns out that where there is a seam or a joint in a pipe, it is possible for a root–even the tiniest of roots–to work its way inside, and once there, fed by a constant water supply (and who knows what other nutrients), can grow.  I’m not sure how anything got past this, but it does explain why we finally got to the system failure point.  

Here’s another shot with my garden boot (former sailing boot) for scale:

It was a significant and unique enough specimen that Troy the plumber sent a photo to his boss and his boss asked him to bring it into the shop so they could all get a first hand look.  

Yay us.

So, with that, our pipe’s been cleared. We’d already decided to replace the 60-year-old stuff with new pipes, so that happened today pretty quickly. Inspectors from two city departments have to approve the installation, and as long as there is sufficient downhill slope, this should happen within the next few days.   Meanwhile we can now use our showers, appliances and toilets normally.  We thought we might have to rent an outhouse for tomorrow night’s dinner party (ha), but now guests can pee and poop and wash up afterward to their hearts’ content.  

Next week, the trenches can be filled, then the task of replanting all the plants can commence.