Nearly normal

Thursday, 4:40 am

By Kate

Dec

04

2008

Well, here I sit with my first cup of coffee, impatiently waiting for the sun to rise. Which it won’t for another couple of hours. I’m awake before the proverbial chickens. And this so not my natural state. However, over the past several weeks, I’ve been trying, very hard, to change my sleep patterns to something that resembles normal. For reasons I know not, I am naturally inclined to have the exact reverse schedule that almost everyone else enjoys.

It takes several weeks to change such patterns. But I think I’m almost there. Just a couple more hours worth of adjustments. And I am anxious for the sun to rise. Then I can Do Things that Make Noise. It’s one of the disadvantages of living in a house that shares a wall with a neighbor. My neighbor may be an early bird, but not this early. I don’t imagine she’d appreciate my vaccum cleaner at this hour, though I have more energy to burn right now than seems decent.

Enterprising neighbor

Wednesday, 11:53 am

By Kate

Dec

03

2008

My former absentee landlord neighbor is now my neighbor again. He kicked his tenants out and moved back into his house the weekend before Thanksgiving. His former wife lives about 5 doors up the street. From his kids’ perspective, this probably is the better arrangement than having Daddy live two towns away as he had been for a while. They’re over here quite often now. In any case, he’s baaack.

About an hour and a half ago, he pulled into his driveway in a strange van and suddenly a bunch of kids piled out—three boys and two girls. They extracted rakes from the back the of van and began raking leaves out of my neighbor’s yard. By the looks of things, they were not enthused. Kind of makes one speculate what that was all about. Community service? Raking leaves during study hall in lieu of detention (he’s a teacher)? It was an odd sight. Worked out kind of nicely for my neighbor, though. His yard is a completely deleafed and very tidy looking now. It made me laugh a bit, too. That’s one way to get your yard raked.

About that banana bread...

Thursday, 11:58 pm

By Kate

Nov

27

2008

That banana bread that I made this afternoon turned out surprisingly well considering. It was somewhat dense and a bit drier than normal. I attributed that to the much smaller loaves. No one seemed to notice and it disappeared in a hurry. I suppose if you slather enough butter on something, it covers a multitude of sins.

I got to thinking about it tonight and suddenly realized why the bread turned out drier than usual.

I forgot to add the 1 1/4 cups of milk. Dunno how I managed to forget that, but it definitely accounts for drier than usual banana bread. At least it wasn’t an embarrassing mistake. As long as I don’t tell anyone who ate it.

One down....

Thursday, 9:14 pm

By Kate

Nov

27

2008

Earlier this week, we had a fierce storm. I didn’t recall hearing that it was a coastal storm exactly, but apparently the waves were massive and the beach erosion was significant. Over the last couple of years, I’ve been watching the beach disappear in huge gouges and chunks after each storm and I know that I’ve speculated here on the blog that it wouldn’t be long before a house would topple over into the ocean. Well, yesterday was the day. The house had a little help, but it’s gone now.

The storm washed the dune out from under the house and the city immediately condemned the house. The woman who owned it was given approximately 10 minutes to remove what personal effects she could carry. Then the house was toppled with heavy machinery. The video below shows the details. There is considerable controversy over the way it was handled, but no one has come up with an idea on how it could have been done better. There really was no way to salvage the house or shore it up. There is simply nothing left on which to build or do any shoring.

I’m quite sure that the woman’s neighbors are terrified. Their houses are sitting on the raw edge of nothing now and one more storm will probably take at least one of them out. This is not a happy Thanksgiving for the homeowner or anyone else out there. Nature is not merciful.

For comparison, this is a photo of the same house that I shot in May of 2002. The photo was cropped a bit—the dunes extended out quite a bit further than the photo indicates. That’s an amazing amount of beach erosion in just 6 years. The storms are becoming much more violent each year. There is absolutely no question about that.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thursday, 2:39 pm

By Kate

Nov

27

2008

The apple pie is cooling on the counter (and smells delicious) and the banana bread is in the oven. The carrots are just beginning to steam—they will end up buttered and dilled. Then, long about 3:00, I’ll be heading out to Thanksgiving dinner. I’m hoping not to embarrass myself too badly with the banana bread. It’s rather experimental. Somewhere along the line, over the last year, I loaned out my bread loaf pan and it never came home. So, my options for banana bread were a regular 8x8x2 inch dish or a new and untried pan with 8 individual sized loaves. I opted for the 8 individual loaves. Dunno how they’ll turn out. It’s kind of risky to try something brand new for Thanksgiving dinner. But whatever. It’s real banana bread with real bananas and it already smells utterly ambrosial.

From what I hear, the turkey is rounding the last half hour lap, the gravy is almost done, and the potatoes are about to go on the fire. We did all the prep work last night, so it was a pretty easy meal to put together today. Sounds as if I have enough time to get cleaned up and presentable. I’m a messy cook. Just glanced at myself in the mirror and I’m wearing a lot of flour....

Interesting observation: The grocery store was cashing in on last minute Thanksgiving shopping yesterday. They charged $6 for a five pound bag of potatoes. That’s double the normal price. People were not pleased. Gotta wonder what possessed them to do that.

Anyway. Happy Thanksgiving to those of you celebrating. There are a lot of things in the news these days that make one nervous about the future and there are certainly those who truly don’t know where the next meal will come from. It makes having a full table shared with friends an especially sweet moment. That’s a lot to be thankful for.

And, of course...we have a new President!! Just had to slip that in somewhere.

Fine February Day

Wednesday, 7:02 pm

By Kate

Nov

19

2008

Today, the 19th of November, was a fine February day. My outdoor thermometer never rose above 28°. And it is heading toward 23° at a pretty brisk clip, even as I type. By the time I post this, we might have already reached it. I must say, that’s rather cold for the middle of November, during which our normal daytime temperatures are still usually in the upper 40s.

I know that most people around here aren’t too crazy about it. I can practically hear all the neighbors keening as their furnaces labor away at mid-winter frequency. The white billows of steam pouring out of their chimneys is deep winter picture postcard pretty, except for the absence of snow. Not that I’m asking for trouble by saying that or anything.... It’s not that we don’t like to share, but you folks in Canada can hang on to your cold weather for a little longer without offending us in the least.

I’m curious how some of these folks are managing. Especially the woman who was determined not to turn the heat on until December 1st. Someone might want to go check on her to make sure she and her family haven’t turned into solid blocks of ice. I suspect all the good resolve went right out the window last night, if not sooner. It has been an uncharacteristically cold autumn this year.

My earmarked November wood supply is rapidly depleting. I don’t think it’s going to last until the end of November at this rate. I’ve been trying to take it a little easy, but when I get up in the morning to a 54° house, my resolve disintegrates pretty quickly.  Here’s hoping for an extended December and January thaw to make up for this nonsense.