a family united in being grateful for AB

there have been some pretty significant changes around here over the last couple of months. the most surprising has been neil's brand spanking interest in cooking. at first it was basically forced upon him due to my new less than human work hours. i wrote down some recipes and he begrudgingly followed them to get dinner on the table at a reasonable hour. he did alright, too. but he just wasn't into it. until today.

we went to J and Noelle's for thanksgiving. good times were had by all, but i must note that the death of my mom also resulted in the death of my favorite holiday. i no longer yearn for a good quality thankful circle. i went for the food and while good times were obviously had, i was just not into it. until today.

somehow we decided that we should recook the whole feast today. it is shocking to me that This is what we are both into. neil got bird and i got sides and leftovers. neil settled upon Alton Brown's roasted turkey recipe. while we all know AB is a culinary genius, maybe some of you didn't know that if we were to meet Alton, Neil would keep a very close eye on me. i like alton; i a lot like.

so, there was overnight brining in a cooler.



the rinsing of the brine. neil may or may not have been singing to the turkey at this point:

is this how you are supposed to hold a turkey?

the patting dry:
a mix of butt-stuffins. onion, apple, cinnamon, all microwaved and then shoved where the sun don't shine with rosemary and sage but neil forgot the sage so just rosemary. sorry alton.
matilda found the whole thing incredibly fascinating and did her best to trip neil and steal the turkey.
moose watched the perimeter. no way someone was going to come in and steal this turkey.
butt stuffins:
the gibbly niblets and some aromatics were put at the bottom on the roasting pan for gravy fixins.
i doubt AB's turkeys look like this before they go in the oven.



holy crap look what neil did. he made a damn yummy turkey. and i am painfully full. again.
i have to say i am officially completely over the whole thanksgiving flavor profile. and we have plenty of turkey left, just like we planned. oops.
so now comes my part. what can we do with all of this turkey that will taste nothing like thanksgiving for another 364 days? stock is simmering on the stove. we are not casserole folks, as there are but two of us. first order of business is some kind of turkey mulligatawny soup for when it snows sunday. and i saw a recipe for turkey pad see ew that sounded kind of interesting. feel free to share your leftover recipes in the comment section. bonus points if it is healthy. extra bonus points if you are alton brown and you want to just come over and hang out in the kitchen with me. i mean us. us, damn it.

grrr argh.

on sundays i get to think for myself again. i spend tuesday through saturday listening to other people, trying to figure out the Tigi color line, pretending i am not terrified of cutting hair, settling disputes between coworkers, sweeping, and fetching hot tea. i do other stuff, too. but right now, this is the blur of my memories for the week. as previously blogged about, we start The Sunday with The Walk. poor neil. that is when my mind starts going big...the plans, the theories, the countless observations. it is an hour walk. that is a lot of time....if you are neil. for me it goes by like a blur:

what will the floor plan be for the third floor when we pop the top on our house in 5000 years? (unresolved due to the fact that we are not architects. current plan is to pretend we are in a sitcom and try to befriend some architects for free advice). should we make french onion soup for dinner tonight? (simmering on stove as i type). can we do no presents but maybe lots of baking for christmas? (yes). do you think matilda will be pulling at the leash until her last breath? (probably and why so morbid?). why do i love living here so fucking much? (answered and unanswered over and over again).


this morning we took the pups for The Walk in quite a few inches of snow. first of all, they plow the path around the lake when it is below freezing on a sunday! likey! anyways...on our way home, i saw a guy shoveling his walk and i declared that i loved it. i loved seeing that guy doing exactly what we needed to do. we have something in common with him, just because we live here. no matter what, in Denver, on any day, i have something in common with every person i encounter....the totally unpredictable, constantly changing, and stunningly beautiful weather of Denver. we love it here. we know it is a very well kept secret. and we are nice to each other when we talk about it. also likey.

and that is really it. it's the nice. it's not the weather. every city and town is what it is. the question is how the people within the city manage themselves within it. people here are kind, thoughtful, and throw out a hefty "good morning" at the lake no matter how cold it is. in san francisco, i'd be lucky to even get a bit of eye contact on a sunny 72 day. and in mill valley, i always felt lucky if i didn't get run over in the whole foods parking lot. why do i love it here? i'll have more for you next sunday, right after i figure out what color to paint the guest room and why Firefly got canceled after only one season when it was just about the best tv ever. i have a lot on my plate.

my favorite time

my new schedule leaves one day a week that Neil and I are off together. So every Sunday morning we take the dogs for a walk around Sloans Lake. It is always my favorite time. it's when work leaves the brain and family enters. it is good for us and good for the dogs and it is why people spend a pretty penny to live in this neighborhood.


we got a bit of snow yesterday. someone had a bit of fun with it. people are happy in denver. i likey.

here i am pointing out some Fall to Neil. You can barely see it in the left of the picture. But it is there. i swear.
Here is a bit of Fall that had the misfortune of getting caught up in Moose's drool strings.



While most folks walking around the lake choose to wear Broncos and Rockey's crap, Neil opted to represent Illinois twice. once in hat form and also in sweatshirt form. when i pointed it out to him, he claimed that no one would really know that his sweatshirt was an Illinois sweatshirt. um, Neil? i know. i always know.

it wasn't even above 32 degrees this morning, it was a beautiful walk. the lake will eventually freeze over this winter and we will continue to walk around it every Sunday. it's just that lovely.

and, well, the company is pretty stellar, too.
pretties:

Rest in peace, Simon.

Contrary to how clever everyone thinks they are, no one is actually clever enough to hide their surprise when i tell them that we have guinea pigs. especially once they find out that the guinea pigs are ours, and not our kids that don't exist yet.
a few years back, Neil and i just decided to adopt some pigs. when you have a couple of dogs, some cats, and assorted other small creatures, a couple of guinea pigs doesn't seem like much more of a stretch. Well, we were a bit wrong about that. and thank god.
We adopted Simon and Walter, who were brothers. Walter is the braver of the two. Simon was the cuter (at least in my eyes). they are incredibly social animals, make wonderful noises, and have such a striking resemblance to someone's fat uncle (i don't have a fat uncle) that you can't help but smile when they put their heads up to sniff whatever treats you are bringing them and their big ol' jowls hang down around their chubby lips. they are not to be forgotten in a cage. they just aren't. and thank god.
unfortunately, Simon passed away on Friday. I knew it was coming at some point soon, as the dudes are pretty old. Neil was a teensy bit heartbroken, as he had become more of the primary piggie caregiver over the years and really seemed to enjoy their routine. of all of the animals in this zoo, i am only allergic to the pigs. so they really have been Neil's little dudes.

So I guess now we have just one guinea pig that people can pretend to not have an opinion about.

So many things, though....mama got a job. that is me. i am mama. and i got a job. i am assisting an insanely talented hairstylist. the color she does floors me. she is meticulous, speedy, and always respectful to her clients....and me! respectful to me, damn it! ironically, she hired me because of my age, not in spite of it. and because of the school i went to. and because Lonnie forked over a pretty stellar reference. i will be assisting her for about a year, for 40-50 hours a week. sometimes i get to sit and eat lunch for 10 minutes. sometimes, not so much. it is exhausting and worth every ounce of energy i give to it. and luckily Neil has decided to pick up some dinner shifts, although i wouldn't hold your breath for any food related guest blogging on his part. Maybe some day i will tell you about the meal that we call "it's a bigger hit". neil made a chicken dish once and we liked it so we declared "it's a hit!!!". then, he made a completely different and ultimately superior chicken dish. we now call it "it's a bigger hit". because it is. we never went back to "it's a hit". life is too short for that crap.

we had a wintery spell last week and temps dropped to the mid thirties. since i was knee deep in shampoo and other peoples hair, i crossed my fingers and let the garden ride. i lucked out. so today we harvested the majority of the remainder of our basil.

it doesn't look like much but it is a bushel, at least. a bale, maybe? i like to call it an "s-ton" of basil. we made enough pesto that i don't think i will even want to look at pesto again before it all goes bad in the freezer. and we still had half an s-ton left. so neil did his best to provoke our nosy neighbors into thinking we are growing, or at least drying, pot.

how illegal does that look? i think it is hilarious, actually. i don't have the heart to tell neil that even after all this dries...well....then what? we'll have two pounds of dried basil on our hands? oh well, the garden was a really great adventure this summer. we still have some cooler weather stuff going on, but we are all gearing up for the next phase. you know, the one where i am so busy at work that i don't have time to be obsessed with vegetation.


yeah, we'll see about that.

Can you see me?

I made what I thought was a genius career move a few years back. I decided to go to beauty school so that I may be a happy person for the rest of my years. I had enough of running other peoples’ offices, businesses, lives even. It was thankless, low paying, exhausting, and often humiliating. Good on me for taking the bull by the horns and starting over.

Except something happened. While no one was looking, I got older.

I spent a year in beauty school. It was great. I mean really really really great. i learned and laughed and met some really great people who called me “mom” but not in an insulting way. It was actually quite cute. They would ask for my advice specifically, because I had a different perspective than their peers. Especially love life kind of stuff because they all Loooooved Neil. If I had landed a guy like that, I must have done something right. Right? And I also met and fell totally in love with Lonnie, who was and is such a huge inspiration to me. He was my teacher and friend and if he would just move to Denver and open a salon, I wouldn’t be needing to write this current blog post.

So here I am now, attempting to get a job in the beauty industry when I am sneaking up on 37 years of age. This job I am trying so hard to get isn’t much more than slave labor traded for advanced education. I need not be skilled. I just need to have a good personality and look the part. I am beginning to think that I would have equal success trying to be an actress in Hollywood at this age. Or my personality is no longer one that is desired in the world. Either way? Awesome. Has my option for greatness simply expired? Am i just too late? If 40 is the new 30, how can 36 be the new retirement age?

While attempting to get a job, I have been mastering my housewife skills. I cook and I clean. I go to the gym and I read. I take care of our pets and I occasionally blog about my garden. And I am here to tell you that it all sucks. No one cares how you made the tilapia taste so yummy and kept it healthy. No one cares that you swept up a pile of dog hair that was big enough to make a whole new dog with. No one cares that you painted the living room a beautiful shade of green. No one cares that squirrels are eating your tomatoes and certainly no one cares that you ran your ass of at the gym this morning, like you may or may not do every morning. and really, no one should care. it is just that i care so much about all of these trivial things because, right now, they are all i have. and it making me bonkers.

well thank god for one person. And that person is this old guy at my gym who always says to me “how is your foot? looking good! Keep up the good work!”. he remembers when I screwed up my foot a while back. He likes to check in with me. for some reason, he actually does care that I ran my ass off at the gym this morning, like I do every morning. There are some days when he is the only person i speak to, besides Neil.

I doubt this rad old man knows that I am struggling with unemployment and thankless housewifeitude. He doesn’t know that I feel invisible and useless. I never told him that I haven’t slept through a whole night in months. He just sees me working hard and acknowledges it. He actually sees me and it always makes my day. I want to be him when I grow up. Or at least I would like to cut his hair when I get a job.

crankypants

i am total crankypants today. i may be getting sick. i am definitely getting older. getting a job has proven to be a much harder and longer process than i had anticipated. and i am pretty sure that Americans are losing their minds. not all of them....just the ones who bring assault rifles to health care rallies and the "birthers" (same people? i say yes). my god what a hilarious term "birther" is! because really, even besides the conspiracy theory, what group of people is more obsessed with everyone else's birth? it's all the same people, folks! it would be hilarious if it wasn't so terrrifying.

Whilst watching The Daily Show last night, Neil and I had our 512th conversation about how republicans are liars and democrats are pussies and my god isn't the whole thing just so boring and depressing at this point? oh and don't forget the terrifying. and the funny on comedy central between the hours of 11pm and midnight (one hour earlier for Central time!)

anyways so yeah i am cranky. and since i can't watch The Colbert Report 24 hours a day, i go back to my garden.

We are having an abnormally less than blazing couple of days here. a leaf fell from our beautiful black locust tree and i did declare out loud "no fall! i am not ready for you, yet!".

i have yet to taste my mortgage lifter, for one.
but also i am just not done having the place to tend. keeping the masses of basil from flowering could be a full time job in itself. the marigolds grow so crazy that they eclipse my chives, which is not okay. 3 of my five tomato plants have collapsed under the weight of themselves. since i can't possibly restake them, i just do what i can to keep the fruit off of the ground. the cucumbers need to be told where to go (up the sunflower stalks), and i am just the person to tell them that. in the land of cranktastitude, my garden really sets me straight.

there is no lying there. no bullying. no assault rifles (concealed or unconcealed). there is one conspiracy theory but it only involves squirrels and strawberries. and i have a job there which pays really really well.

go away Fall. I am just not ready for you yet.

2nd anniversary!

today is neil and i's second anniversary. it is also barack obama's birthday. great things come to be on august 4th, i guess.

neil does this really charming (annoying) thing where he tends to only take pictures of me when i have no makeup on, am in sweatpants, and/or i have had a few drinks. in the movies, ladies in their sweatpants are all dewey faced and perfectly coy yet endlessly beautiful. i am splotchy with multiple chins.

so we decided to set up the tripod and take some pics of us before dinner tonight. to be honest, the last good pictures of us were taken on our wedding day. so i suppose we are celebrating two anniversaies today. wedded bliss and single chin photographs.

how did we do?:










feel free not to answer that. i suppose i was asking for it by bringing the dogs into the mix but...well.....i love them.

i had intentions of writing about our amazing dinner at Duo. but that will have to wait until next time. i seem to have involuntarily sedated myself with exceptional noms.

i love my husband. i am sleepy. happy birthday, mr. president.

PeppersMS.

i think i have seasonal mercury in retrograde affective disorder. granted, it is summer and mercury is not in retrograde. but i am tired and forgetful and everything i say gets taken the wrong way and my peppers won't grow. the peppers are how i know it is not a PMS thing but rather more of a universal malfunction thing. maybe i have PeppersMS. get it? be nice....it is hard to be funny when you have PeppersMS.

Squirrels. mother effing squirrels. remember last year when i thought their pumpkin eating was so cute? well now they have just gone diabolical. i have sunflowers. the sunflowers i have are not your wimpy "i love cherry tomatoes!" kind of sunflowers that don't actually have any seeds (um,or character?). they are mammoth "mortgage lifter tomato" kind of sunflowers that tower above me and promise flowers the size of dinner plates and plenty of seeds for birds and squirrels to snack on....In The Fall. that would be if the squirrels were not gnawing through the stems and lopping off the tops right now this summer.

Glorious regal sunflowers:
sad victim:
what the squirrels don't get is that i want to help them! they can have the seeds! they just need to let them grow first. dummies.

i think i am supposed to be harvesting my strawberries soon or something? does this look like a harvest?

cos that is all i got.
on the brighter side, we have new snacks!

ichiban eggplant tastes really good, people! i have never had much success with or love for the eggplants. but these guys are yumtastic.
we (Neil) built a leaning trellis for the lemon cucumbers once they finally started growing. the plan is that the vine travels up but the fruit falls through the trellis for easy pickens.


here you can see a dude following directions:

i have a question for you....are green beans supposed to grow like curly little turds?



i have another question for you. how many squashes would one need to eat a day for it to become an unhealthy way of living? i grate them into salads, sneak them into stews, use them instead of noodles, and try to pawn them off at pool parties for 6 year olds. i think i only unloaded a few that way, but i was desperate. and they fit so nicely into the sparkly party favor bags!

a few folks who have visited the garden have questioned how the brussels sprouts actually grow. and i get it. you want them to grow like broccoli or cabbage...a big head right in the center.

what they actually do is grow like little knobs along the stalk of the plant. see little baby brussles here:


Well folks, i am sure you are thinking "why is she bothering with all of these other trivial garden items when there are tomatoes on the line?" i know, right!?!

well, lookey here. the best thing is that the basil is all a bushy 3 feet tall and neil has finally come to appreciate the Caprese Flavor Profile so.....

it. is. on.



overview of the vaguely controled chaos:




faulty carrots: The guinea pigs don't care, though. also, this really is the basket i harvest with. sometimes i forget to bring it out back and neil says "don't forget your harvest basket!" and i stop and wonder "who the hell are we? i have a harvesting basket and neil reminds me when i forget it? really?" that must be the secret to our two years of marriage.


so i am trying to figure out what i will do for cool season crop. more swiss chard because that crap cooks down and i can eat a LOT of chard. collard greens? are they cool season crops? i love them. some cabbage maybe? broccoli? suggestions are welcome and appreciated.

Don't call it a comeback

"I been here for years
Rockin my peers and puttin suckas in fear
Makin the tears rain down like a MON-soon
Listen to the bass go BOOM
Explosion, overpowerin
Over the competition, I'm towerin
Wreckin shop, when I drop these lyrics that'll make you call the cops
Don't you dare stare, you betta move
Don't ever compare
Me to the rest that'll all get sliced and diced
Competition's payin the price"

This is what my garden would be saying to you if my garden rapped. Also, that one line would probably be "when i drop the tomatoes that'll make you call the cops", since a garden doesn't really have lyrics or anything. i mean, duh!

we are not out of the woods yet. but we have been getting some actual sunshine and actual heat. we are getting the afternoon thunderstorms on a daily basis too (thank god cos the swamp cooler is being fritzy and mama needs a cool down here and there) but we haven't had hail in a few days now and the plants are thrilled at the break.

Biggest surprise so far has been the swiss chard. you may remember that i overwatered it. and then mother nature pissed all over it for weeks. well lookey here!:

This may look like a lot of peas, but i can eat a day's harvest before i even make it out of the garden. in fact, Neil accuses me of "eating all of the peas" every day when he gets home. it goes like this..."hey babe. how was your day? did you eat all of the peas?" just because i CAN eat of the peas, does not mean i actually DO eat all of the peas. sheesh, husband.


here is our first Lemon Cucumber flower. I was about to give up all cucumber hope entirely. Me of little faith.

We harvested a couple of yellow squash for dinner the other night. 2 down, 974 to go. and we also have a zucchini growing as well. i will rethink this next year, after i have enough gardening confidence to not have to rely on the easy squashy stuff.


Here are our recovering sunflowers, lettuce, and strawberry patch. i know it looks as though we are insanely patriotic and funloving, but the pinwheels are to scare birds away from the lettuce and strawberries. unfortunately, nothing scares squirrels. More on this later.


I noticed something pretty interesting today. I purchased my 5 tomato plants in two different sizes....and two different prices. The larger plants were quite a few bucks more than the littles, but it seems to be evening out quite a bit now. Here is a cheapyteensy Mortgage Lifter, a cheapyteensy Cherokee Purple, and a priceybigsy Big Beef.

And dudes, this is what it is all about. all of it. here:


So Moose. I love this dog. Like it hurts me sometimes. How can any animal be this sweet? Kids sense it in him. Last week we went to a kickball birthday party for adults. There were kids there, too. and Moose. Two little girls were fighting over who could hold what part of Moose's leash and who Moose liked more. um, excuse me girls. he likes me the most and i think i'll hold the leash, thank you very much. um, anyways....you get my point. he's just too nice, that Moose. He clearly did not learn that from us.


Look closer....



okay, i will look closer for you....


I thought this thing was going to jump on my face like something from the movie Alien. Moose just thought he was nice to look at. Moose didn't even get up into a sitting position. He lied there while the squirrel chirped "i'll eat your eyeballs, bith!" at me. seriously. Needless to say, the squirrels have made it so that we have not been able to eat any of the strawberries that have ripened. i see them get pink, and then they are gone. or half eaten. those are my favorites...the half eaten ones. thanks for mocking me, king of all rodents. now get off of my house. or maybe i'll just go back inside for a while....