Life of Wry

We are looking at a couple years of creek repair. I know I posted a pic some months ago of Spafford Lake… here is one from way further west, just past the Putah Creek Lodge.

Before… (This was taken on January 25th this year, as it turns out. I feel lucky that I was able to dive into my 94,923 photo archive and actually put my finger on a “before” photo that matched yesterday’s “after” photo. My archive is ‘smart’ enough, but I’m not sure I can effectively filter a search based on certain bends in the creek… so this was a lucky find.)

Yesterday…

I hope all the construction work pays off!

I’ve listened to a lot of court pundits and legal scholars talking about the trial (you know, the one where the former guy, before he shockingly became the guy, gave a lot of money to a woman he had an affair with on the condition she wouldn’t go public with details about their sexual encounter, thus keeping from Americans important information about just who this asshole is, and in the process also falsified accounting records…. that trial). No idea how it’ll go. My mood depends on who the legal analyst is… some are certain the state has made its case convincingly, others get far more technical and don’t believe a solid line’s been drawn yet to the defendant. Who… let’s just all agree, had the affair, freaked out when he learned the details might come out just two weeks before the election, totally directed his minions “to take care it” by paying off that nice porn star, and then lied through his teeth about all of it. And still is.

Favorite line so far, issued by the creep defendant: I won’t be on the market for long in response to Michael Cohen’s concern for the creep’s poor wife (who’d just given birth to their son) and his wondering if she’d be hurt, mad, or whatever. She just didn’t amount to a hill of beans as far as the psychopath republican nominee for president was concerned.. he’d be remarried soon enough.

Anyway. What an effing nightmare this guy is… this guy the evangelicals just eat up, whose cheesy bible they plunk $59.99 down for.

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I was trying to finish this blog and Jim’s in a hurry to go to Pub Quiz and is standing by the front door, and I say, “I just have to come up with a blog title and he says, “how about It’s Time to Go!“

That works!

I have nothing to blog about (besides a million blogs to catch up on.. like this year’s Guatemala, Oregon, Ann Arbor, and Arizona trips that I haven’t reported on, not to mention last year’s big trip all over the place that I haven’t touched.. and a few other smaller trips, but), so I’ll post a pic of this:

I love them, but never make casseroles. I made a double batch of that one today because have two friends who are laid up (one with a fractured pelvis and one who had open heart surgery) and I needed to come up with a fast and easy follow up to my reflexive, “I’ll bring you a meal” offer. I’m not very practiced on the art of delivering meals to recovering friends. It stresses me out every time. What I do know is that we absolutely loved receiving meals when Peter was born (and maybe some folks brought us food when I had my hip replaced). All I know is, every delivery was a thrill and greatly appreciated. So… how hard can it be to be on the giving side of that transaction?

Well… I haven’t figured out the best way to do it.. have tried numerous things, not sure any of them have been hits (but of course it’s the thought that counts, right?). I’m not sure my casserole dinners tonight were any better than past clumsy efforts, but it was at least a bit more traditional.

I’ll keep working at it.

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Oh, so tonight’s casserole had three main parts…

Pasta that you prepare al dente and to which you add broc florets in the final minute of the boil:

Cut up pre-cooked chicken (like from a rotisserie chick or baked up yourself).. and I added a couple different sausages for extra punch…(one was chicken artichoke, the other chicken gruyere):

And finally a mushroom soup that you make (rather than use canned cream of mush soup.. a staple of so many casseroles!), that’s got butter, onion, garlic, crimini mushrooms, flour, broth, milk, dijon, cheddar, s&p (which was quite tasty!):

Mix it all together:

And bake it for 25 mins or so, adding a layer of cheddar half way through.

Came out good enough, a bit rich. I made enough for lots of dinners for Jim and me (froze a bunch).

And again… I’ll keep working at it.

Jim and I missed what seemed to be the best night for viewing the Northern Lights in California (3 nights ago). They weren’t really supposed to be visible at our latitude, but, in fact, people saw a spectacular version of them.. right here in Davis!

Well.. we committed to driving out into the country the following night to view them. We parked on Kinsela Road, right off of Road 32, between Davis and Winters, and waited.. about an hour.. but never saw them. We returned home. I went out a couple of times, into the middle of the street, hoping that I’d see them if I looked north and left my exposure on long enough. But all I got was this:

Nice shot, no aurora.

So.. that was Saturday. We heard Sunday was also going to be a bust, so we didn’t even try. And by tonight, I’d forgotten all about it. Norora for us.

So.. here’s this — my favorite rendition of the amazing light show that everyone all over the globe’s been raving about (and getting jaw dropping photos of, look it up!)…

As always, the funny people came through.

I love Mother’s Day.. as it gives me sort of an open invitation to immerse myself in thoughts of 1) mom and 2) being a mom to Peter. Jim gave me a warm start to the day with a bouquet of flowers from our garden and a card that expressed the realization that our role as parents has really changed, but we’re still here and still loving on our kiddo.

From our garden!

Peter called this afternoon and we talked for 2 hours and 22 minutes. Yep. We covered a lot of great territory, all good, all interesting. I just can’t tell you.

I posted whole bunches of photos on FB, so I won’t do that here. Instead, I’ll post a few from a walk I took myself on… 🙂 All down at the creek… (I think my phone is stuck in some aurora settings from last night.. most of my photos today came out fuzzy, like it couldn’t figure out what to focus on.. but I’m posting them anyway (just take off your glasses and pretend they’re sharp).

The annual Whole Earth Festival opted to move its substantial operation to the IM Field, as the students have set up a pro-Palestinian encampment on the Quad.

My response to this is: what an extraordinarily generous move on the part of WEF. There is no shade on the IM field. The temps are in the 90s this weekend. Thousands of folks are grumpy and overheated. Vendors are suffering under their unshaded pop-ups. It’s a very unpleasant place to listen to music and picnic.

I get it, what are you going to do.. clear them out? I generally support the students in their right to protest. And there they are, plunked on the Quad. But I’m also annoyed. I think a huge part of my annoyance is rank fear that there is building momentum for an unstoppable freight train of discontent that will lead to the loss of the youth vote. Which matters on so many levels. I’m annoyed that the issue has become an oversimplified binary choice.. you’re either pro-Palestinian or pro-Israel. The nuance of history and complexity seems lost. And with that oversimplification comes anger at Biden for a walk on the tightrope that is not satisfying their demands. And their demands are so .. I don’t know.. uninformed? Unhelpful? Uncompromising?

The Quad was quiet this morning as music echoed over on the IM field.

And yeah.. that sign says, “COP WATCH ZONE, WE HATE YOU.”

Drove to Santa Rosa yesterday to have lunch with Judy who was spending a week in the wine country for a change of pace/scenery (with Jon of course, but also with her son/DIL/grandson, who are beyond adorable). It was worth the drive over, even as the normally 90-minute drive turned into a 2-hr drive in one direction and a 3-hr drive on the way home. Hello Friday gridlock.

The advantage of Friday gridlock, however, is lots of time to sit and take pictures out the window… this swath of California is one of my favorites, especially in the Spring.

This is why…

Hwy 37 along the northern edge of the Bay…

Ever-pastoral Lakeville Rd…

Along Hwy 12 through Sonoma Valley…

The morning started when my alarm went off at 5:00am. I then spent two+ hours in the bathroom dealing with this stuff …

I was completing a process that had begun last night. I was to drink a whole gallon of lemon-sweetened, laxative-infused syrupy water (one cup every 15 minutes) over the course of 4 hours — two hours last night, and two this morning. The regimen also included a couple of Rx items (a softener and something to address all the gas).

So.. you do all that, and voila!… you’re as clean as a whistle and ready for a camera to be inserted into the netherworld of your bowels… a camera that will offer up-close (and ever so personal) views of the walls of your colon hoping not to find anything too scary. Kind of a search and destroy mission… looking for polyps and, if found, removing them for lab analysis. I’ll learn in about a week if I have anything to worry about.

It seemed very appropriate that I spent my two hours this morning (tethered to the bathroom) watching the trump-hush-money-to-cover-up-an-affair-with-a-porn-star-so-he-could-win-an-election-fraud trial.

Both disgusting endeavors.

Haven’t had jello since, oh… maybe the last time I had a colonoscopy… maybe 20 years ago. It’s time, don’t you think? (For the jello, not the procedure!)

Our Tower of Jewels fell down this week. Last week, it was regal.. standing tall and proud, towering over the other wildflowers in our front yard.

From the googles:

“The amazing biennial can grow from 5 to 8 feet tall and is coated in the second year with brilliant pink flowers. If sheer size doesn’t impress you, the silvery foliage and prominent anthers give the flowers and foliage a sparkle when sunlight hits them….  Echium tower of jewels starts its first year of life as a grayish to silver rosette set low to the ground. In the second year, it produces a tall, thick flower spire with slightly ragged silver foliage below. The spire bursts with cerise to salmon pink-cupped flowers arranged in rows upon rows. Each of the nearly one hundred blooms have white anthers reaching out from the throat of the flower.”

I’ve read that they die after their second year bloom, but set enough seeds to ensure another in its place the following year.

If ours hadn’t fallen down, it would look like one of these: