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Lemme me see the other side.

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I’ll tell you what. I have lived in Minnesota. I know what cold feels like. I spent a couple of winters in Anchorage. I know what big snow looks like. I grew up at the South Jersey shore.  I am familiar with bone cutting, sand carrying, January winds that administer the midseason microdermabrasion treatments. Stings a bit when the feeling comes back into your cheeks.

Now I’m in Buffalo. And I am becoming expert in the wintry mix. Sloppy.  Gusty. Raw. The Christmas pine garlands are flopping all over the place. And dog walks are wretched.

“Yeah.”

Sorry, that was Miss Tibbit interrupting us. This afternoon she pranced onto the back porch, got blasted in the face with a sleety snow, and turned around to come back inside. Wasn’t worth it. No thank you ma’am.

Buffalo winter means that Hamish the Corgi and Sweet Tibbit come home from walkies with salty wet feet. Hamish’s undercarriage is a cindery mucky mess. Every time. (The cat just sneezed in my wine by the way. Just saying. Nice moment.) If I leave the dogs alone I have mud on the sofa, salt foot prints all over the house, maybe a sick dog because I guess they aren’t supposed to lick that rock salt.

So. Every day, several times a day, we do the lemme see the other side routine.  The dogs know and when it is gross outside they climb the first set of steps and wait for me in the hall landing. I unglove, unshoe, unhat, uncoat, unscarf, grab the dog towel, and crouch down. Hamish stands stiffly in front of me and presents his near foot – usually port side, held high in the air. I wipe it, rub his chest under there. Let go. He steps forward and balances his weight on the starboard side. I wipe the back foot, wipe the belly, let go. Miss Tibbit, who is anxious that this isn’t going fast enough, pushes past. “Lemme see the other side,” I tell Hamish.

He steps forward a bit, performs a Corgi K-turn, hoves into reach and presents his starboard foot. Wipe. Forward. Wipe. “Next,” I say. Miss Tibbit appears in my face, one front foot in the air. Wipe. She steps forward. Back foot wipe. “Other side,” I say, like a train conductor announcing the stop. Tibbit steps away and carefully negotiates a turn, presenting the other front foot. Wipe. Forward. Wipe.

The dogs assemble conveniently near the dog treat storage area while I drape the dog towel on the heater. It’s irritating, the dogs get rubbed with a warm towel after the Buffalo winter walks. What am I running here, a dog spa?

Anyway, I rattle the lid of the treat jar and toss snacks into waiting maws. “Alright,” I tell them, “I’ve got work to do,” and we head back up to the desk. Oh boy, only a couple of hours until the next Buffalo winter dog walk.

The daily suspense of straight razor shaving.

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Last Christmas I gave the WideEyedSpouse a reasonable quality straight razor.  Months of careful research led me to a shave-ready Dovo at Vintage Blades LLC. I learned about stroping. Honing. Shave oils and after shave balms. I was an anthropologist of the man-world, specializing in the use of one of the scariest tools ever to approach a face.

Razor3This past week the Spouse has finally settled into the straight razor shave. I read that it can take up to 300 shaves before a man is proficient. Before that they can expect to have a little pain, a little blood, maybe a scar or two. The Spouse is now on Shave 6, or so.

He’s in there right now, carefully approaching his face with the startlingly sharp blade. It’s a quiet process, no water running, no tap-tap-tap of the plastic handle of the safety razor on the sink edge.

I feel fear. What is happening in there? Is he bleeding out on the floor? I’m looking at the threshold under the bathroom door – nope, no red puddle spreading out. And the dogs don’t seem overly interested – wouldn’t you think they would be if lifeblood was splashing, spilling all over the white bathroom floor?

My new habit is to be dressed and ready to leave the house for an emergency room run before the Spouse heads in to shave. Nothing too nice though, because presumably there will be staining gore all over.

Each day begins with the suspense of a slasher movie. I know something really dangerous is happening behind that door. Will the Spouse saunter out all fresh-shaved and relaxed? Will I hear the thud of his draining body hitting the floor? That straight razor was a great gift – sustainable use of resources, a cool skill for the Spouse to develop, a hint of old-timey in our tech driven everyday – but it’s going to take some time before I stop planning for triage in the upstairs bathroom.

The geese were flying without moving: a portent or just the end of a long week?

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I watched a lopsided arrow of nine geese hover above a leafless oak. The massive oak was far larger, more truly there than the tiny clapboard church it grew near. I could see the willows on the far side of the intersection, their fronds fluttered nearly horizontal in dense gusts of wind. In the Mini’s speakers, Rihanna and Eminem sang about being friends with the monster under the bed. An old man wandered in the graveyard across from the church.

The light turned green and the Mini and I accelerated away.

That was Friday. I thought about the geese, the trees, the old man while the WideEyedHousehold cleared and mulched leaves on Saturday. They all wandered around in my head while we did the Fall housecleaning on Sunday. Here it is Monday, and I’m busy at the desk, those geese still hovering in that mental space just above my eyes.

What did I miss about that moment? What was I supposed to see that I did not? I want to go back to campus and wait again at the intersection, but the intersection of space, time, and event, just as I witnessed it, will never again be.

If it was a vision, a set of signs, maybe it means I can’t move forward against the scary large-scale forces pitted against me. That I have to bend with them, submit to them, just hold against them or surely I will die.

Or, it was a moment of calm at the end of two weeks of deadlines and stress. The first time I had a thought that was just for me. Let’s go with that one just so the WideEyedSpouse doesn’t begin to worry about my wits –

Walking dogs in the fall has a certain frisson.

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The leaves changed in here Buffalo in that last week or two. An orangey road glow replaces the striking sun to shadow dichotomy of summer. Bowers formed by century-grown wrinkled and twisted tree branches, trimmed into arches over the sidewalks, allow a little more of the post autumnal equinox sun through so that there is a gloaming rather than pools of shade. Miss Tibbit and Hamish kick up leaves as they trot along, noses in the air to catch the damp scents.

Fall dog walks joyously beautiful. They are peaceful. The fair-weather dog walkers have abandoned the parks and streets and Miss Tibbit has fewer dog friends to yowl toward. Hamish has fewer challengers to his tiny and vulnerable Corgi dignity. Yet, fall dog walks are fraught with danger.

It is a social danger, sure, but no less frightening for that. It is all Hamish’s fault.

As you may know from past chronicles, Hamish is a Master of the Craft of Display Defecation.  His joy in his craft is unsubtle. A car full of family returning home from a long day at work? What an excellent opportunity for a drive-side event. I stand and wait, blue bag on my hand, in a public demonstration of my intention to clean up. As Hamish finishes, he eyes me and smiles, steps forward and kicks with his ears up and his mouth wide in a doggie grin. His tiny back legs do a little stiff legged dance – left, right, left, right – pause – and one more time. I’m sure I’ve described it before.

The practical effect of his charming act during these serene fall walks? He covers his deposit in layers of leaves, which are shaded just the same as his…well I don’t want to be overly vulgar. I think you know what I am implying. I am left with a car full of homeowners observing us and a yard full of brown, gold, orange leaves with something unpleasant to extract.

I sigh, wrap the leashes tight around my free hand, and start pawing through the leaves. “Miss Tibbit,” I call, “Come help me find this.” She ignores me. Hamish is 15 feet down the sidewalk, already planning his next event. Hamish deposits , kicks, and moves on – job done. He sees no need to linger in the area. The longer I crouch in someone’s front yard, pushing leaves around, the less likely I am to find the prize. I can feel the family of observers losing confidence that I will provide a satisfactory conclusion to our so far benign neighborly transaction.

I won’t tell you how adept I have become at “finding” what Hamish has left behind. I’m not proud of it. But sometimes a person has to make morally ambiguous compromises. The fall dog walkies are beautiful, but they are filled with peril.

Thanks Mini, for getting sick before the dead of winter.

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Team WideEyedFunk spent 5 hours in the garage Saturday, transplanting the Mini Cooper S’s failing electronic thermostat housing. It wasn’t quite freezing outside and I could feel my toes for most of the afternoon. Sure, some nice folks at the Mini dealership could have done it for us, and I could have stayed all warm and toasty on the sofa. But, the WideEyedHousehold is cheap.

Start

The sick Mini.

SupportStaff

Team WideEyedFunk support staff.

We suited up in chilly weather gear, prepared the surgery table, and started the multi-hour Mini evisceration. First the air box came out. Good thing we had a new air filter ready, the old one was caked with Buffalo street filth. Poor Mini was feeling asthmatic.

SurgeryTable

Surgery table.

DirtyFilter

The Mini’s sinuses were crusted with urban decay.

We unplugged a couple of vacuum hoses, a bunch of electronic stuff, and yanked out the wiring harness box. We drained most of the antifreeze out of the engine. Messy, like pumping a stomach. Then, the WideEyedSpouse leaned deep into the engine and unhitched six hoses from the thermostat housing. Some went to the turbo cooling system, some feed the heating system somehow, and a really big one shot back into the water pump. That one vomited some nasty when it came undone. The old thermostat housing had caked up leaky holes marks all over it. I was driving a Mini that was ready to puke out its guts all over some busy, probably rainy, highway. Poor Mini. Poor me.

EmptyGuts

Evisceration.

In less than an hour (listening to iTunes radio playing hipster songs) we plonked the new housing on, shoved the hoses on, plugged in the vacuum hoses, reattached a bunch of electronic things, put the air box back, and zip tied the crap out of anything loose. The WideEyedKitchen sacrificed the iced tea jug for mixing the Mini soup, er, antifreeze and we fed the little guy some juice.

Finish

Transplant complete.

In an act of great bravery, we zipped down a dark and rainy Main Street to pick up our large pepperoni. The Mini held strong. Go Mini. Go Team WideEyedFunk. Wish us all luck when the water pump goes – and please, think warm thoughts in that wish. None of us feel like cranking apart the passenger side of the car to transplant that in January. But we’ll do it. Because we’re cheap. And because we want the Mini to feel ok.

The snow shovel crept to the front of the garage.

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Five months ago the bright yellow snow shovel lurked in the back of the garage, giggling and biding its time. It was creepy and irritating.

SnowthrowerToday the show shovel made its move to the front of the garage. It rests on the snow thrower. The WideEyedSpouse and I excavated the snow thrower from under a heap of empty plant pots and landscaping tools in the back corner. It now lives in a prime position in the front so that when, not if, the snows come I can just crack open the carriage door and drag that wretched, growling, exhaust belching machine out into the winter calm.

I like to stand for a moment in the quiet hiss of a million flakes landing and wallow in the low skies and monochromatic peace of the snows before I crank up the 2-stoke. After that it’s all shock and awe and far flung snow masses and the crunchy rip of dog toys grinding through the blades and fwoop, out the chute into the neighbor’s yard. There’s no serenity in these moments of driveway clearing. Of course there’s no pain either and that’s the whole point of a snow thrower isn’t it?

One hundred feet of driveway. Fifteen minutes of roar, putt, putt, putt, roar. Ten minutes of detail work with the vile snow shovel and I’m back inside for coffee. The WideEyedSpouse always looks so fresh and clean and relaxed when I drag my snowy, motor oil stinking self back inside. He leaves for work early. I leave for work by climbing the stairs from the kitchen. An unfortunate side effect of my work-from-home life includes responsibility for the snow thrower.

I guess I better get some 2-stroke oil and a gallon of gas. The clouds are rolling in, the temperatures are dropping.

Home Renovation Made Possible by the 1970s.

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If Looking Glass had never recorded Brandy (my life, my love, and my lady is the seaaaaa), would I have been able rebuild and repair every half fixed house I’ve lived in for the past 15 years?

If the Commodores didn’t make Brick House (She’s a brick-house. Mighty, mighty, just letting it all hang out), could I have boogied my way through edging uncountable ceilings on the top of a high ladder, among the fumes and echoes?

How long could I have endured the paint striper chemical gloves without Carly Simon’s You’re So Vain (I bet you thought this color was pret-ty, pret-ty, you’re so tacky…)?

The WideEyedSpouse hears the ocean rumbling and smells suntan lotion when we stream Big Joe Henry’s 1970s heavy show on New Jersey 101.5 or the itunes Best of the 1970s. The Spouse grew up in Ocean City, roasting in the summer sun, listening to pop music on transistor radios. Me? I hear sanders and smell sawdust because I grew up in old houses. I failed to learn from my youth and I still live in them. And for whatever reason, nothing I can articulate, Saturdays, and the 70s music are for home renovation.

The roller rolls better to Poppa Was a Rolling Stone. The Midnight Train to Georgia makes me edge cleaner. The BeeGees make me sand harder, Fleetwood Mac sends me screaming from the room for a coffee break. And always, without fail, as soon as my hands are too junked up to touch the tech, the interminable ten hour (ok, minute) American Pie song comes on. “Long long time ago…” Bathroom break.

Painting to the 80s doesn’t work. Sanding to the 90s, no good. Millennial music? Great in the car but it just doesn’t have that steady 70s underthrum that keeps a person working, when she’d really rather be lounging around eating snacks and reading novels.

paintingThe WideEyedSpouse and I finished a painting project last weekend. A urine-y yellow upstairs foyers is now a glowing Rock Candy (Sherwin Williams #6231) grey. We edged three layers of paint around nine doors and one ceiling. We rolled the tiny flat spaces between walls. We boogied through it with help of the 70s and my magic painter’s pants. And maybe some beer.

Curse Not the Green Tomatoes, Make Chutney.

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The Fedco seeds Cosmonaut tomato variety yielded fine, heavy fruits in my garden this summer. They failed to ripen. I may have had words about that in past times. I take them all back.

The knife wielding WideEyedSpouse and I picked, washed, chopped pounds of green tomatoes to make six pints of chutney, six pints of green tomato gold. Five are left. Yesterday, on hearing that I had chutney stored in the basement, WidedEyedFriend W made unsubtle overtures toward getting some of it. I pretended not to understand. There are only five pints left to last an entire year. I am already planning a 2014 green tomato garden.

I combined two recipes (1, 2) I found on other sites to make my own concoction based on what they said and what I had around:

  • 12 cups seeded, cored, and diced green tomatoes, 5-7 pounds
  • 1 cup raisins (paid no attention to light, dark, whatever)
  • 1 cup Craisins
  • 2 cups mixed chopped onions, shallots, 2 garlic cloves (in exponentially decreasing volume order)
  • 3 cups brown sugar (paid no attention to light, dark, used whatever dregs I had around)
  • 2 teaspoons salt (fine-ground French sea salt, Penzeys Spices)
  • 2 ½ cups cider vinegar (cheap, store brand that I keep in gallons for cleaning)
  • 2 tablespoons pickling spice (grocery store bought)
  • 2 teaspoons chili powder (Penzey Spices)
  • 2 generous tablespoons of old, crusty dried, sugared ginger lurking in the back of the cupboard

We started with big, green, healthy but unripe tomatoes.clean tomatoes

The WideEyedSpouse cored and seeded the tomatoes because of the sheer volume of seeds and interior bits that would have possibly impacted the texture and taste.green tomato chopped

All of the ingredients went into the non-reactive Le Creuset oval dutch oven. Once they boiled, I set them to simmer for an hour and a half while I heated the waterbath and sterilized the pint jars in the boiling water. The lids boiled in a smaller sauce pan for 15 minutes (or so, I sort of forgot about them for a while).boilingchutney

The chutney was dark and thicker but still liquidy when we spooned it into the jars. The stuff is napalm so if you do this, be careful. I wore a nice new pair of thick kitchen scrubbing gloves so I could handle the hot stuff. We left about ¼ inch of headroom, wiped the extra yuck off and hand tightened the lids down with the bands. The chutney jars boiled away for 15 minutes or so with an inch or more above their lids in our giant scary pot of boiling water. boiling chutney

Now, except for the one I couldn’t resist opening and eating in the space of a week (squandered!), they are resting quietly on a dark shelf in a cool root cellar part of my basement. I look at them most days. I imagine the chutney on pork chops, on egg and cheese sandwiches, on cream cheese toast…if I ration it, if I guard it from friends, there will be one pint every two months. I need more green tomatoes.FinishedChutney

Revolution Style | Look Your Best During NSA Interrogation!

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Our government has failed us and it is time to oust the dysfunctional ruling body and call for a revolution, but we don’t want to be caught in the wrong outfit when the NSA comes for us, do we girls?! Make sure you have on pieces that leave you comfortable and put together after days in an unmarked NSA detention cell! You’ll look fresh and fashionable in “who’s this criminal?” NSA instagrams and you’ll be ready for your CNN interview as soon as you’re released!

The Dress – An unstructured, lined silk with ¾ sleeves and a fanciful pattern in a darker palette won’t bind up, won’t show blood stains after you’ve been slapped around, and silk is tough! A quality silk can take rough wooden benches, handwashing in toilet bowls, and won’t rumple past a certain “I’ve been up all night” élan!  The ¾ length sleeves will keep you warm during cold phases of environmental torment and can be pushed up when the heat is on! Be sure to find one with a charming lining, you can remove it and have two dresses – one to wash and one to wear! I like Anthropologie’s Isle of Skye dress.

Shoes – You may be thinking flats here for long term comfort, but you’d be wrong! Consider those cold cement floors and the steel grates in the waterboarding chamber. Ouch! I recommend a solid soled boot with a slight chunky heel, like the classic Fyre 12R Engineer Boot. It will look good with the dress and the dress lining, can be worn in warm or cold conditions, and with that heavy heel it doubles as a bludgeon if you are detained with less savory characters than yourself!

dressSocks – Smartwool, all the way. With bacteria fighting properties and a squish that won’t squash, the Smartwool light hikers are MEANT to be worn several times before washing. The perfect detainee sock!

Underwear – Now girls, this can be tricky. Be sure you have on clean underwear as soon as you call for the revolution so you start fresh. I recommend an ensemble that is tidy and modest but shows that you are not embarrassed to be seen in your unmentionables!  The Commando ™ CYA Panty is opaque and well-shaped without being matronly and is made of quick dry fabric – so easy to clean! For your top, the Chantelle Rive Gauche T-shirt bra will stay comfortable and keep you structured. With its lace trim you will be the belle of the strip search cubicle! Most important, both these choices will stay sag-free during de-lousing and waterboarding.

Wrap – Go with a cotton or wool pashmina big wrap in a solid color, patterns show poorly on TV and we all want to look our best in the top secret interrogation video footage.  The wrap will be your blanket, towel, pillow, and splint as you endure the rigors of questioning and detention, so find one you like!

Hair and Makeup – Go for a charming, curly tousle that shows well after days of sweating through the pain, and as always girls, 24 hour water proof mascara for stressful situations!

Ready to look your best for the NSA? Great!

Once you are dressed and ready to go, have a look at the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence. When you, like me, see that the government is once again(!) perpetrating egregious offenses against us, then it is time to call for the revolution!

Rise up!

Speak out!

Demand a truly democratic governing body!

Revolution.

The world’s slowest rotating restaurant.

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I slurped my left-over broccoli soup dinner, “Huh?” I replied to the WideEyedSpouse.

“It’s like we’re on the world’s slowest rotating restaurant,” the Spouse repeated. I gazed at him, thinking maybe those Left Hand Milk Stout Nitros were hitting him a little hard. They could rotate a room I guess.

The Spouse had been thinking about the fact that we live on this spinning ball in the middle of an awesome hugeness and that gravity is the only reason we aren’t flung off. After dinner, he stood in the driveway while the dogs had an evening yard romp and stared at the stars. “If you look long enough, you can see that they are moving and that we are moving.”

I don’t know what happened to the Spouse that he had a moment of awareness of the vastiness. Maybe it was triggered by our camping trip to the wilds a week or so ago. The night sky was huge, the Milky Way looked like mist flowing off the mountains around us. A couple of satellites zinged past, probably recording our campfire for the NSA. Walking from the campsite to the bathhouse was an exercise in balance, not because we got into the wine (ok, maybe a little), but because the stars and planets and satellites and UFOs for all I know were larger and brighter and more real than the crappy dirt road our Crocs were scuffling on.

The dogs and walked the neighborhood this morning and I tried to feel the spinning planet, the wide universe. I thought about overcoming gravity and immediately worried about how Hamish and Miss Tibbit might engineer, ah, elimination, without it. Then I sat at my desk and commenced with the workday. In one of the world’s million slowly rotating offices.