As long as my tomatoes keep bearing fruit well into October, I’m perfectly fine with global warming. Hell, I’ll be dead long before the planet burns up. Just give me the tomatoes. Here’s what I picked in a single trip out to the garden just 4 days ago, on October 21.
I kid. Sort of.
Today is October 10. It should be bright, crisp and cool today … and we’ll have the bright part down well, but we’re headed to the upper 80s. It’s a glorious, glorious day. As soon as I hit ‘Publish’ on this post, I’ll be out in it until dark.
I’m keen on the growing trend of what I’ll call Urban Ruralism—keeping a small garden, old-school crafts like knitting and sewing, canning and preserving (which is suddenly SUCH the thing). It’s funny: with the exception of sewing, I’ve been doing this stuff for awhile. And I’d add to that list: drying laundry outside.
I grew up falling into bed made with sundried linens on summer nights. There is nothing … absolutely nothing … like spending a day outdoors and then tucking in between sheets that smell of the outdoors. Forget all those “nature”-scented laundry products. Hanging sheets on a clothesline on a sunny day has all the disinfectant, freshening, brightening action you need.
In April, our hearts broke. We said goodbye to our beloved friend Wrigley, and grieved deeply. We cried and talked about him almost daily, and thought about him constantly.
We still do. He is a spiritual presence in our home.
Wrigley taught us love, patience, compassion, patience … and because of that, we knew we were destined to welcome another friend into our lives.
This weekend, we did. And in just over 24 hours, we’ve come to love our new friend in a different, but equal, way.
After a conversation with an acquaintance gave me a serious case of dog-on-the-brain, I popped into Petfinder.com at work one morning about a week ago. I did my customary search, but neglected to check the tick box to select only male dogs. And there, third on the list of search results, was a pup named Susie. Her profile photo (below) showed a lively sparkle in the eyes and a wide grin, and I couldn’t help but think of Wrigley. I sent Rob a link to her profile, and called him at work (half expecting him to say, “Yeah, she’s cute …” and that being the end of the conversation). He said, “Well, do you want to inquire about her?” And the rest, as they say, is history.
Nileydog Rescue, a Cincinnati group, had scooped her up along with a half-dozen other dogs on a rescue mission to a rural West Virginia county shelter. The shelter was preparing to euthanize its entire population later that day in anticipation of a long July 4 holiday weekend (apparently, nobody could be bothered to care for the animals over the long weekend).
We signed the papers, ordered a collar, leash and tags, bought food and a crate, and settled on the name Peroni. It’s a tribute to Wrigley, in a silly way. We picked her up Friday evening, and she’s moved right in. She wants to be with us all the time, she’s laid claim to all the furniture, and we’ve started to explore the neighborhood. We think she’s about 7 months old. She has some learning to do, but she’s eager to please and seems to be a quick study. We’ve already got Sit and Down pretty well, and are working on Come and Stay. Walking on the leash is a new experience. We’ve discovered that a long walk will really tucker her out. A tired puppy is a well-behaved puppy.
We feel blessed to have two fantastic dogs in our lives and hearts.
We just love the Jimtown Store, outside Healdsburg, CA (our favorite locale, excepting our silly home). We were lucky enough to be in town last month for Jimtown’s First Thursday Wine Bar. The whole experience was so great I can’t even explain it. Deeply, richly, wonderfully, terrifically great.
So we were super psyched they used our mugshot in this month’s party invitation!
Update: I was sweeping the side porch yesterday and discovered Ms. Walking Stick entrapped in a spider web, upside down (in a very indelicate pose), being sucked on by said spider. I know it’s all circle of life and shit, but it bummed me out.
If it’s late summer at the Mooths, you can find a welcome annual visitor on the side porch. I relish the return of the walking sticks every summer. She just appeared this week; we’re keeping an eye out for Mr. Walking Stick.
The tomato plants I stuck in the ground back in late May are finally bearing fruit. One of the varieties is your good old garden-variety Beefsteak. The plant is huge; it seems like it’s been putting all its energy into the green matter in order to support the tomatoes. When we got back from vacation, I discovered a HUGE tomato hidden in the vines. We’ve waited patiently for it to ripen. It’s so big that I thought we should name it, and Rob suggested Binky. We carried it with great ceremony into the kitchen on a platter, like the boar’s head at a Madrigal dinner.
Meet Binky.
Note that this is an 8-inch chef’s knife.
On our recent trip to California, we played several rounds of golf at Half Moon Bay. It was gorgeous.
My job is deadline-driven, and my nature is task-driven. I need to be busy, and I live by to-do lists, whether at work or at home. Often, I have difficulty unplugging when we go on vacation.
When we were in California recently, I was very conscious of being present. I made an effort (and it took effort, for me) to begin every day with a focus on that day, on each segment of the day. In the morning, I tried not to think about whether we needed a dinner reservation. On Monday, I didn’t plan ahead for our day on Thursday.
Perhaps more important, I unplugged literally. I didn’t check my work e-mail. At all. (That was a first.) I didn’t call anyone. I barely posted on Facebook.
And it worked. I soaked up every nanosecond of our trip, relishing each minute I spent with Rob, living completely in every day. I smelled the air. I felt the foggy mist. I tasted wine. Deeply.
The feeling continued after we returned Friday night and spent the weekend in each other’s company, reliving our vacation experiences and being inspired by the food and wine we enjoyed on our trip. And then Monday rolled around, and I trudged back up the steps to my desk, and lost myself in the to-do lists and the e-mails and the tasks. It was a fairly brutal re-entry.
I was intrigued to read this story in the New York Times today about a group of neuroscientists who spent a week camping, hiking and rafting to see the effects of unplugging from technology. This part struck me in particular:
“Attention is the holy grail,” [psychologist David] Strayer says. “Everything that you’re conscious of, everything you let in, everything you remember and you forget, depends on it.”
Echoing other researchers, Mr. Strayer says that understanding how attention works could help in the treatment of a host of maladies, like attention deficit disorder, schizophrenia and depression. And he says that on a day-to-day basis, too much digital stimulation can “take people who would be functioning O.K. and put them in a range where they’re not psychologically healthy.”
I loved these ceramic farmers market baskets that I found at The Gardener in the Ferry Plaza in San Francisco. So much that I deeply regretted buying only one, the pint basket. Fortunately, Rob scouted out that they have a larger store and garden in Healdsburg; conveniently, I was able to purchase the half-pint and quart baskets. (The Gardener doesn’t seem to have an online store, so if you’re smitten too, you can order these Roost ceramic berry baskets here.)
mooth 2.0 