wideeyedfunk

Tag: Buffalo NY

  • Old House | Freedom Thief

    We had freedom once. We hiked. We rode mountain bikes. We visited antique shops and flea markets, clutching take-out lattes. We read the whole Sunday paper to fill the time before brunch.

    But our lives seemed empty. So we bought a house and fixed up it. Then we moved. Bought another house and fixed it up. Then we moved, to the biggest, oldest house yet.

    It must be painted. I do understand that there are professionals who do these things for you. For buckets of ducats. But the WideEyedSpouse and I sort of want to see what is happening on the house. Get a sense of coming maintenance. And, we want to run the 35 foot boom lift and stare down at the neighborhood from our lofty position.

    Yesterday we started.

    House Paint 2015 Day 1 tools

    We scraped. I washed with pre-painting detergent. No, I’m ok, it only burned a little when it dripped down my arms and off my elbows.

    House Paint 2015 Day 1 scrape

    House Paint 2015 Day 1 fresh coatWe painted. Creamy white. Deepest blue. We painted until 12 minutes after sunset, knowing that rains were coming and hoping for the necessary 1 hour dry time before the deluge. I worried over this and the Spouse told me, “The rain never comes from that direction anyway.”

    After one day of painting, the WidedEyedHouse is about 1/20th done. The torrential spring rains are, as you might expect, lashing against the newly painted walls. The paint is holding steady so far. The members of the WideEyedHousehold are huddled inside, nursing blisters and sore muscles and bruises. Desperately avoiding thoughts of 19 more 10 hour days of scraping and painting in the hot summer sun. Dreaming of lattes and brunches and aimless weekends.

    House Paint 2015 Day 1

  • Pulled pork eight ways since Sunday

    The WideEyedSpouse smoked a ten pound pork shoulder over the weekend. I mean that exactly. Over the weekend. It was a 16 hour process, not including the preparation of the rub, the annual smoker cleanse, the pre-smoke meat rest, the post-smoke meat rest, and the actual pulling of the pork. The smoking aromas were intoxicating. Enticing. I told the Spouse that it was like I had traveled to some city with a BBQ reputation and I was in line for some of the good stuff. All day.

    As it turns out, ten pounds of raw pork shoulder equals about seven pounds of smoked pulled pork. For two people.

    We are now two days out from the initial meal of pulled pork sandwiches, Memphis style. I have eaten:

    • Pulled pork on a plate,
    • Pulled pork out of Tupperware,
    • Pulled pork sandwiches, again,
    • Pulled pork snackies for evening peckishness.

    There are half pound pulled pork packets in the freezer for future delights such as pulled pork chili, pulled pork omelets, pulled pork fried rice, pulled pork tacos, pulled pork sandwiches, again.

    And tonight, friends, the pièce de résistance of pulled pork, a pulled pork pizza.

  • Far in space, far in time.

    Far in space, far in time.

    The mighty Pathfinder and I rolled down Main Street, heading home after a day of thinking and talking. Same as everyone, same as always. My freshly opened bag of Tyrrell’s Handcooked English Chips – Mature Cheddar and Chives flavor (flavour?) – rustled on the console next to me. “Crunch, crunch, crunch,” my chomping teeth said at a red light. “Crunch, crunch,” while we waited for a school bus to drop some kids.

    Potato ChipsI checked the back of the bag for interesting potato chip news at an egregiously long red light. I was eating Lady Rosetta Potatoes grown in Herefordshire. Well ok. I examined the next chip in the afternoon light. It sorted of looked like a Herefordshire potato. “Crunch.” Tasted like one, too. I got to wondering about that potato. Who planted it? Was the farmer dreaming of a better life, or was she living the rural dream? Did the tractor need a new water pump and was the mortgage due so all hopes were with this potato and it’s brethren? Could the potato feel the sun and the rain as it grew? I bet it bounced along the conveyor all full of potato joy and fulfillment as it headed into the Tyrrell’s chip factory.

    That potato traveled so far for me. I marveled over the weirdness of our world that I could know where my chips were grown, in another country, across an ocean. That they shook and shivered their way to me on a big cargo airliner, in trucks, through customs, across states. I selected another chip and crunched with appreciation. Perhaps just one more…in thanks for all the folks who cooperated to bring me the chips.

    Limestone PalletThe Pathfinder and I wheelied onto our street and backed up our drive. Then I saw it, the pallet of fossiliferous limestone flagstones had been delivered! I threw the Pathfinder into park and flung myself out of the car. The flagstones are deep marine blue with reddish layers of fossil crinoid stems and brachiopods and chunky masses of flattened vegetation. My heart pounded. I have an ocean from millions of years ago resting in my backyard. I sniffed the rocks. They smell like rocks, not ocean.

    My potato chip wonder now seems absurd, but I leaned against the ancient ocean and ate a Herefordshire chip. I looked at my iron garden koi, who was made 6,000 miles away and who will float in the air above an ancient ocean once the patio goes in. Far in space, far in time – converging in my world.

  • Surrender to the Sweatpants

    Miss Tibbit-the-Useless-Little-Black-Dog is pressed against me here on the sofa. She is super fluffy and still a little damp. Hamish is asleep in his chair looking rumpled. We all had a tense evening and I made an early surrender to the sweatpants.

    You know what I’m talking about. There comes a point when a person submits to the notion that the day is over. That there is no need to be in any way presentable. In this moment, sweatpants are the only choice. Not pajamas because those aren’t even clothes. Sweatpants. Elastic waist. Sometimes, preferably, elastic ankles. Droopy. Large. Sickeningly comforting. So horrifying that even if the house were on fire I’d change into other pants.

    Mine are 11 years old. I bought them when I was writing my PhD thesis and I vowed I would wear no other pants until it was finished. That took four months. Now they are a faded navy blue. They have zips at the ankles just in case I’m being active and need to shed my sporty outer layer. That’s just funny to think about, really.  Because sweatpants activities in the WideEyedHousehold include 1) getting another glass of wine, and 2) watching tv. They used up their energy and intellectual capacity during the thesis writing.

    Today I lost a conflict with a copier/scanner, fed the dermestid beetles, struggled to make sense of conflicting bone measuring schemes, researched grants, skimmed an entire volume on the extinction and extirpation of birds in Oceania. I returned overdue books to the library and filed paperwork in three places. I was thinking about the sweatpants before 3pm.

    Then, just when the day should be verging toward evening: The Laundromutt.

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    Members of the WideEyedHousehold are cleaner. Softer. Less objectionable. But worn down to the bone. WideEyedSpouse just walked past my end of the sofa – in pajamas. “Straight to pajamas?” I asked. “I’m cutting out the middle man,” he said.

  • Spring on my bookshelf if not on the ground.

    Spring on my bookshelf if not on the ground.

    Outside it is snowing. I can’t stand it. Miss Tibbit can’t stand it. My mouse keeps clicking on garden websites. I pretend ordered over $500 worth of dry, sunny condition plants yesterday.

    I bought tulips in an act of desperation.

    Tulips

    They are keeping me company in the office, nestled among the things I look at everyday…my dried frog from a beach cliff road in Estramadura region, Portugal. A favorite rock from the Rat Islands. Binoculars for staring down squirrels at the bird feeder. Beethoven on the radio because the Beethoven Festival is this week in Buffalo and that’s what’s playing. Grandpa WideEyed’s Perfect Attendance Certificate 1915-1916. My dented clock. Which would not be dented if it chose to stay on the wall like a normal clock. And, from my salad days – a Certificate of Award for participating in the Middle School jog-a-thon in 1981. I jogged 6.9 kilometers – I jogged in KILOMETERS you’ll note because the school system was still pretending to the metric conversion back then.

    Office Wall

    Spring tulips among my everyday things. They are making me smile.

    May you all have spring tulips today – in your hearts if not in actual fact.

  • Ludwig’s No. 9 on a Spring Evening

    Ludwig’s No. 9 on a Spring Evening

    We dug deeply into the closet for The Suit and a Dress. The WideEyedSpouse installed cufflinks. I glued a dangling sequin back onto my dress and pulled out the outrageous silk and roses wrap I made last fall, just as my world turned dark and winter.

    It is Springtime now. And, of course, Ludwig deserves the best and brightest. So last night we sparkled and gleamed the Mini over to Kleinhans Music Hall, leaving glitter and joy in our wake instead of carbon-rich exhaust. It was that kind of feeling.

    Have you spent much time with Beethoven’s Symphony Number 9? It overwhelms. It fills a person with complexities of sound and silence. There are whispered conversations between flutes and violins, there are arguments between basses and tympani drums, French Horns have opinions all over the place and eventually more than one hundred voices join the instruments, yelling in German about Joy.  More or less. The lyrics don’t actually make a lot of sense – I don’t know if it’s the translation from German or changing social contexts –  “Millions, be you embraced! For the universe, this kiss!”

    Huh?

    But I don’t have to get it. I can feel it. From across two centuries of unfathomable change, I can feel despair, contemplation, redemption, and Joy. I think about the millions of us who have listened to the Ninth and how we are all connected through the biological construct that was Beethoven’s brain. I think about cultural change and how long will our ability to hear Joy in the Ninth last?  – When will we be so different that we hear only cacophony?

    Set aside an hour or so of your life. Play the Ninth. Let yourself be. You’ll get a little bored here and there – that’s because you are overstimulated by the music. Then you’ll be sucked back in and you’ll realize your skin is prickling. You’ll think unexpected thoughts. Last evening I spent a little time realizing that if the zombie apocalypse came during the concert, I’d be ok with this being the last thing I experienced. Then I thought about how to defend the balcony from zombies and considered which of my seat-neighbors would be a liability in the fight. Then the music changed and my brain moved on.

    If you are like me, you’ll sometimes be so full of the music that you can’t breathe. You’ll realize that you are inside of it or it is inside of you – and you should marvel that Beethoven, who doesn’t know you, can’t know you, understood so perfectly how to craft sounds that reach you across time and space.

    Celebrate Spring. Clear winter’s mush from your brain. Play the Ninth and play it loud. Joy.

  • A good mattress.

    I love a good mattress. You just don’t see too many of them at this time of year. Maybe it’s so cold that people aren’t moving here and there as often in the winter. Maybe there’re good ones under all the snow banks – I don’t know but I miss seeing them.

    We were out on patrol two days ago when it got a little warmer. I didn’t even have to wear that horrible coat. I HATE that coat. A lot.

    …

    Oh, right, we were out checking our blocks a couple of days ago and there it was. A big, floppy mattress slung across a snowbank. I ran right to it and shoved my face into a really nice looking dark spot dribbled down the side. I breathed in hard and snorted back out. I rolled my eyes back in my head so I could really concentrate.

    I snuffled my chin hairs along the edge, to catch interesting spots along the whole length. I sneezed and looked around. No one seemed to be in a hurry so I hopped up on top. I pressed my nose here, and there, and over there. I can’t even tell you what feast of scents I had – I’ve been stuck in that house and yard for days because it hurts outside and this mattress was a real treat.

    Hamish popped up onto the side of the mattress. No! Mine! I lunged at him and he left. Probably peed on something, that’s all he does on patrol. I could tell we were moving on soon so I took a bunch of fast, small sniffs all over the middle and edges, storing them up to think about later. I really do like a good mattress.

    Guest writer: Miss Tibbit-the-Useless-Little-Black-Dog

    Tibbit on the Sofa

  • The meatballs are in the crockpot.

    The outside world was a rude -6°F this morning. The dogs wasted no time out there during morning walkies. They failed utterly to enjoy the hard, crystal blue sky and sparkling snow. Fair enough. I am appreciating it from my office window.

    Death dealing icicles are dangling from every house for blocks. One neighbor has glaciers forming in the deep vee swales of his roofline, the forward ends are ten-foot long broadswords aiming for earth. Or his car. Because he parks under them.

    SnowYard

    The snow squeaks under feet and tires. The ground isn’t the ground anymore. We’ve all given up trying to clear sidewalks and driveways entirely – we’ve taken to forming a smooth surface of the trampled up, super frozen mass. My boots thunk on these elevated walkways. Miss Tibbit-The-Useless-Little-Black-Dog pees on them and it all disappears. She can’t be the only one. Melting day is going to be awesomely gross. Bleach down the neighborhood gross.

    CrystalsIn desperation I applied Swarovski Crystal tattoos this morning. They are tiny, wee crystals on adhesive. Now my cheek bones sparkle like the snow. I figure that if I disguise myself as a Snow Sprite I’ll be warmer. I won’t mind the frigid temperatures, shocking winds, and massive banks of snow. Two years of this nonsense ran the WideEyedHousehold out of Minnesota a few years ago.

    In further desperation I made meatballs in marinara sauce. A warm, meaty, herbal aroma ought to make us feel secure, warm, and content in these horrible depths of winter. They are in the crockpot now. Sure enough, their happy scent is wafting up from the kitchen. Later the Spouse and I will run out for crusty rolls and provolone cheese. Of course, we are also going to pick up snowshoe gaiters because we are going out into the cold for a hike tomorrow. Probably I should apply more Snow Sprite crystals and eat lots of meatballs in preparation.

  • What happens when one of your top five take-out places gets a liquor license and installs a bar?

    Nothing good and everything wonderful.

    Last weekend I was starving, STARVING after cleaning the house, doing the laundry, walking dogs, and visiting the car show. Sliding gracefully in and out of dreamy luxury sedans (I recommend the Audi A7 for sheer comfort and interior silence) and climbing into wee-electric cars (the Chevy Spark doesn’t feel real) works up an appetite. We stopped at a newer restaurant that’s supposed to be good  – a two hour wait and hairblowingly loud music in the bar. The WideEyedSpouse looked down his nose. “No. Much No.” We tried a BBQ joint. One hour and 15 minutes. Good food but not that good. Drove past our number one sandwich take-out joint. Closed.

    Friends, we were now out of our milieu. We were in downtown Buffalo after dark. Unusual. We were looking for food without a plan. Rare. We weren’t calling for pizza. Shocking. In fact, we had given up on the very notion of take-out. The universe shook and I was cast adrift, hungry, helpless, sad.

    The Mini motored us up Elmwood Avenue past trendy food joints. Nothing looked right. A kale salad at home was, I feared, inevitable. Then we saw it. Joe’s Deli, our number two sandwich take-out option and a top five regular. They’re in my phone. But this was a new location, with neon beer signs and open past 8pm. The Spouse cranked the emergency brake for a mid-traffic bootleg turn and slid into a snowy parking spot less than 20 feet from the door. At least that’s what it felt like. That’s how it should have been.

    It was wonderful. A long list of crafty tap beers for the Spouse, a Dark and Stormy cocktail for me. A short list of bar snacks  – not enough to baffle and just enough to provide multiple tastes. We ordered one of each. Who needs a sandwich when there are Bar Snacks? I smiled over the table at the Spouse. Reasonably decibeled music played. Kids ate with their parents. Everyone looked happy, no one was especially hip. It could not have been better.

    Which is no good. Because now, instead of take out in sweatpants, glasses, and end of the day poor attitude I’ll have to decide – do I want a quick and easy sandwich or do I want to be out in the world, smiling at the Spouse over a table full of snacks…

  • Darkest January.

    The long haul is here. The days are cold, too cold and windy for good dog walks, gardening, anything really. The nights are frigid, too frigid for standing in awe of the starry universe. The short hours of daylight, and don’t try to convince yourself otherwise, yes the days are getting longer but they are still short – the short hours of daylight pass interminably in the dark gleam of overcast skies and no end in sight.

    The house creaks and bangs in the shifts from cold to exceedingly cold. I can hear my neighbor’s back door slam in the hyperlucid air. The dogs bark each time. Shivering a little at my observation post at the window, I think dark thoughts about wearing their warm furs as a cloak. That would stop the barking.

    Sirens blast through the city more or less constantly. January is the season of emergencies. Fires burn hotter, car accidents shatter windshields and bones more spectacularly, the cold makes the emergency greater, the response itself dangerous.

    The WideEyedSpouse and I have inhabited Northern Cities by chance and happenstance for thirteen of our twenty years of marriage. None have bested the grim, dark, endurance trial that is Buffalo for sheer misery. The windows of abandoned houses and factories stare into the darkling days and pink-light nights. Heatless, roofless, they are havens for the desperately poor. The dreams of a new generation of city-builders are lost under heaps and mounds of poorly plowed snow, rock salt encrustations, and the skittering drifts of wind-blown trash. Hundred thousand dollar Mercedes purr warmly past layered heaps of used clothes that are people waiting for buses. The contrasts are starker without the greenling veneer of temperate spring and summer, or golden fall.

    Maybe it’s me.

    Maybe tomorrow I should strap on my Wisconsin-bought ice skates, don my Minnesota-cold furry hat and glide in circles on the new canal-side rink. Maybe I should make snow angels, feed and water some hungry birds. Maybe on the gloomiest and coldest of days I should make donations to the heating assistance fund, the electricity assistance fund, the food cupboard and hope that I’ve helped others get through.

    Maybe I should rejoice in the long quiet that is a Northern City Winter and find peace.

    We’ll see.