Puppies....

After Pete, our magical, beautiful pup died nearly two years ago, Christmas day, 2007, I waited to have a conversation with myself about whether to wonder when we might accept another pup into our lives. Went back and forth, first yes, then no, and then decided I'd give it a couple of years, and then I'd take a pup into our lives again if it found me first, if it showed up on my back doorstep.

So,... about four weeks ago when Gary was out of town, I walked to the back door to let Sophie in after her last wander around the yard for the night and behind her were two puppies, tails wagging like mad, all ribs and full of burrs.

Even as I hoped like mad they belonged to someone, I knew it had to be impossible. They were so painfully skinny, maybe 6 months old, so happy to be here. They huddled against the back wall on the deck, and I brought them food and water, and then they snuggled in together, shivering a little in the cold. I dragged the monster dog crate up from the basement and filled it with comfy blankets and covered it with a thick packing crate blanket and they seemed pretty happy there.

The next morning there they were, waiting again at the back door, and I fed them and tried not to like them too much. Beautiful. They disappeared later in the day. Gary phoned from Cincinnati, and when I told him, he said, "We can keep them, honey, if you want." But I didn't want. I wanted someone else to keep them. Two weeks before, Gary had nearly brought one home, telling himself if the young pup hanging around the plant was still there at the end of the day, he'd bring him home. Thankfully, he was gone when Gary walked to his car that night.

The pups came back later that evening and the next, disappearing after breakfast, coming back wet, tired, dirty. And then the morning Gary was to come home, they disappeared all day. I waited up even later than usual, but they were gone. I hoped they'd found a kind soul to take them in. Gary came home, was sorry he hadn't got to meet them, and then a few days later, just as we sat down for breakfast, the back door open for Sophie, in they ran, making a beeline for Gary as if they'd known him all their lives.

I phoned the local rescue organization, took their photos, moved the dog crate to the bakery after they decided they'd rather be there, got them neutered, started to teach them small things. Despite Gary insisting we could keep them, I resisted. And then when he had to travel a week later to Italy it hit me full force how remote it is here, and how much more so it would seem when both Bella and Sophie are gone. And also how rare it is to find two pups who are so well-mannered, who learn so quickly, who are practically perfect in every way. So beautiful. So sweet. They're lovely. Lovely lovely lovely.

So, our new family members, Lily (the white and red pup) and Rosie (the red pup).  They are clearly sisters. And although Lily looks thoroughly English pointer, Rosie looks like a cocker mix.  It didn't take but a few days to house train them. They sit nicely when asked. They're learning to come when called. They're very wonderful.

Gary says it's karma. I don't know what it is, except that I couldn't close my heart to them. And I kept remembering that conversation I'd had with myself/god/whatever after Pete died. It's been nearly two years now, and I'd already asked the universe to give me another dog, to allow one to show up all by itself on my doorstep. And truly I felt as if I'd be spitting in the face of all that's good to turn them away. I guess somebody decided two were better than one.

Currently Second Nature: A Gardener's Education By Michael Pollan see related

my first wedding cake....

As I said in November, I was planning to do wedding cakes. But first I had to learn how to do them. I figured it would take about six months, and voila, pretty much right on schedule. Here's what I had to do....

first,... learn everything there is to know about wedding cake buttercream, not to be confused with actual buttercream which scares nearly everybody to death but which I think is actually pretty simple and can do with one hand tied behind my back -- not to mention, standard wedding cake buttercream has irritatingly difficult ingredients to find,...
 
also fondant (I made my own for this),... 
 
find reasonably-priced sources for a variety of cake boards and pedestals (this one is sitting on a wooden cake board covered with some of the fondant cut to size),...
 
find sources for all sorts of ribbon for decorating cake boards which is surprisingly difficult, especially in my neck of the woods,... 
 
learn how to put all the stuff together and how to stack (the bottom tier has straws standing upright in the center to support the top tier, a neat trick) and also had to buy a slew of differently-sized cake pans,... piping tips,... piping bags,... crimpers,... cutters,... etc....
 
...books to figure it all out, a couple of dvds for support,... oh, and a reasonable-enough source for sugarpaste flowers just to start because buying fresh ones is a pain in the neck right now and making them is way more than I wanted to learn what with everything else right off the bat, although I have a couple of local resources for wholesale flowers as well,...
 
and on top of that... have a bank of actual cake recipes and fillings and flavorings for a variety of cakes for brides to choose from....
 
I wanted to start simple, two tiers, easy piping, flowers, and a nicely decorated cake board instead the godawful foil-covered things I see everywhere....
 
And finally, yesterday, looked up a site for making a light box to take photographs, another neat trick with a great big cardboard box, white Christmas tissue paper, a couple pieces of white contstruction paper and two big lights.

I had to go back and correct some piping, otherwise I'd have posted the first photo I corrected the lighting on, but anyway, I'm gonna fix that later.
 
I'm kind of pleased with how it went. The next one should be easier, though it's going to be more complex. I've been practicing my piping, and despite the whole thing driving me batshit, once I got the cake together and started decorating it, I started to have fun with the whole shebang for the first time. Which is kinda what I'd been hoping for.

dancing fools....

Just because I've never been caught in the act on camera before, or anyway at least not dancing,... I'm putting this up. We've started dancing again, like a lot, which for both of us is heaven. This weekend, our usual joint was hosting one of the many Mardi Gras parties happening all over Louisville, and at some point a guy with a lot of serious camera equipment showed up and spent a fair amount of time following us around the floor. When he asked if we'd write our names down for him, I figured we'd find ourselves on the club web site. Today, a friend texted a link to the Louisville metromix site, and there we were.... Surprise!

Gary looks unaccountably dorky to me there. He's actually a very good dancer. A bunch of women kept hollering, "You go, girl!" every time we passed them during our triple step around the floor (otherwise known as "swing on the move" or Texas two-step), and at one point one of them actually reached over the rail and grabbed my arm and said to Gary, "You better hang on to this girl, she's awesome!" Which of course isn't true, but it's nice to hear.

Edited to note: I actually have a left arm. It's behind me, but the sleeve is doing some weird voodoo thing and it looks as if I have only one arm.

blog slacker....

The thing is, I hardly ever come over here to Xanga anymore. 

A few months ago I was lured to My Space by a good friend, but My Space is ugly and unwieldy, and I didn't pay much attention to it.

And then he switched to Facebook and insisted again I join him there and we spent a few days irritating each other, he sending "friends" and pics of buff, half naked guys in the hopes that would inspire me somehow to hook up with people, while I groused and protested and got cranky.

For him, it really does work for networking, which he engages in with a vengeance whilst engaging in theatre work around the country. But for me? Didn't seem worth it, and I really didn't feel like reading one liners about what total strangers were doing at work or having for lunch or what have you. And then I started finding actual friends and family, and then acquaintances and fellow foodie people around the Louisville area, and it suddenly took on a pretty strong life of its own.

So I'm there now more than here. It works really well as a sort of mass bulletin board/email system for folks who just want to check in quickly and briefly with each other, say hi, share bits of personal news and the like. It's easy to use. It's way more attractive than My Space.

If any of you who still show up to see what's up with me would like to join me over *there*, leave me an email.

Currently The Story of Edgar Sawtelle: A Novel (Oprah Book Club #62) By David Wroblewski see related

A state of emergency is easier in warmer weather....

But electric companies work harder in the dead of winter to restore power.

First it snowed, and then in the middle of that it started to sleet, and then it snowed again and then it rained ice all night. After that, it snowed hard for a couple of hours. It's deep, but it's so frozen you can walk on top of a lot of it. Or anyway Sophie and the cats and I can. I can't find my own rubber boots, so I've been wearing G's which act like big snow shoes for me.

So for the second time in something like four months we woke to no power and what did I do? I rolled over and went back to sleep, hoping we'd have power by the time I woke up again. G puttered around making himself useful and then surprised us both by making it out of the driveway and down our snow and ice-covered road to get gas for the generator. After waiting in a long line with desperate folks making a run on the gas station for gas, cigarettes and junk food, he came home to settle down with a book, hoping that if we waited awhile we wouldn't have to resort to that. And he didn't even bring back ice cream.

Thankfully, we have the generator, together with the wood stove in the basement. We keep a ton of wood stacked down there and keep a fire going all winter, a huge help, and a thing the cats love. It's like Forida for cats. They spend their winters lounging on wicker porch furniture, basking in the heat.

All morning and into late afternoon, the power would intermittently kick on and off, and I fell into catastrophizing, wondering whether we'd freeze to death tonight or be forced to sleep with the cats. A real possibility, although the cats too often end up flying out the cat door when the dogs come down, so I fretted over all the possible complications for awhile. 

I finally burrowed out from beneath the piles of blankies and quilts and went downstairs with the notion of making a pot of espresso on top of  the wood stove, which is plenty hot enough,... and also heating up some lentil stew and toasting some rosemary bread.... This is when those massive batches of stews and soups and breads we've made and stocked in the freezers come in handy in a big way, and it occurred to me once again how fortunate we are, what with all the stuff.... Got most of it together to take down to the stove, and voila! The power came on.

We really could  have managed pretty nicely, what with the stove and the generator and our little electric heater and two freezers full of food and a well-stocked pantry and piles of quilts, but it occurred to me it's way more difficult to get through this sort of thing in the winter. Or would be long term.

For the horses, the most difficult problem in the past was keeping their water trough clear of ice in the winter, which I've gotten unused to since we have an electric coil. Back in the day, from Arkansas to our first couple of years here, I'd get up every winter morning and break up the ice with the handle of one of the muck rakes whilst swearing a blue streak. It was only once I'd bought the electric coils that it occurred to me what an idiot I was for spending so many years breaking up ice.

For now, I'm worried for the trees. A few years ago in Arkansas, we endured one of the worst ice storms in the state's history, and this feels very shades of that. That one came on quickly and appeared absolutely benign til you walked outside and realized everything was covered in about two inches of ice. For miles and miles and miles and miles. That's a lot of ice. About three days later, hundreds of ancient, glorious trees for miles around began crashing to the ground. At first we thought it was gunshot. And it was only about an hour later when we ventured outside to see what was going on that we realized what it was. Heartbreaking. A weather story yesterday from the same area in Arkansas reported exactly the same thing happening again the past few days.

Louisville is apparently still in a state of emergency, with impassable roads, fallen and falling trees and limbs, snow and ice. Massive trees decimated. It's probably only a matter of time til we hear that old familiar gunshot of crashing trees in our neck of the woods, and I dread it. I still haven't gotten over losing all those gorgeous, ancient trees to the hurricane tail winds only months ago.