Sarah Wynde's Blog, page 17

Unfinished blog posts

I’m becoming the queen of unfinished blog posts. I’ve started… oh, maybe five or six of them recently and none of them made it to “actually posting for other people to read” level. It’s not like I’m all that perfectionistic about my blog usually: I’m a big fan of treating this as casual writing, more or less stream-of-consciousness. I try to think of it as being for Future Me more than for any current reader. What will I want to remember? What will make me smile? 

But it’s a weird time. Yesterday I was sitting on my bed with my legs folded under me. My knees started to hurt, so I went to shift positions, but before I moved, I checked to see where Zelda was. Gotta make sure I don’t kick the dog, you know. 

Surprise, she wasn’t there. It was a surprise to me, actually, even though it has been 19 days since she died. (I’m not really counting the days like that, I just knew it was more than two weeks, less than three, and I couldn’t remember what day of the week it was.) 

Last Saturday would have been her 16th birthday. I worked on a blog post for most of the day, decided at the end of the day that those words could just be for me. I thought it would get easier after that. 

On Tuesday, we picked up her ashes. I thought it would get easier after that. 

Someday soon, I’ll scatter her ashes at a beach. I even pretty much know which beach and which part of the beach. I’m sure it’ll get easier after that. 

Meanwhile! Um, well, lots of thoughts about friendships and relationships and people’s roles in our lives that I don’t intend to share. Except to remind myself of these moments from journals in my past: 

February 16, 1992: …Worst fear — that Michelle might die. Second worst — that I will go on feeling this far away from her.

So weirdly prophetic! She died February 5, 2012, almost exactly twenty years later. 

And: 

August 14, 1991: …Work people — too many right now to have figured them out but I think I want to be friends with Suzanne, aka Bones.

Good call, self! Really, truly, brilliant call. I’d just started a new job, a REAL job, and I was extremely excited about it. I think it was maybe my second day there, or pretty close to that. 

And yeah, my failed attempt to write a blog post on Saturday led to a lot of looking through old files. I was not keeping an electronic journal in 1991 – 1992, but when I got rid of my house and all my belongings, I copied bits of some of the things I was throwing away before tossing them. Only five years later, but it was still like stumbling upon the unknown. In my defense, I was pretty busy right around that time. 

*****

My favorite of the poems I saved: 

5/26/1987

There are little purple flowers

smiling at me

They will be dead by sundown

I can do nothing to save them

They do not care

They rejoice

*****

I probably shouldn’t share this one, but it so made me laugh. 

2014-08-16

Rory’s first day at New College. I miss the kid he used to be. I often feel these days simultaneously proud and exasperated. I’m pretty sure he’s a terrific person, but I don’t get to see enough of that guy. I get to see the expressionless, “I have nothing to say to you” person, the one who views any question as an interrogation & takes offense at the slightest insult. I feel like I have to walk on eggshells around him and then every once in a while we have a conversation about something like “esoteric happy endings” and I’m reminded that he’s still in there. So today was a mix of bad and good, but at the end of the day, I’m leaving him in a place that I think will suit him well. I’m optimistic for the future!

Is it funny? Maybe not really? But sort of, definitely sort of. I laughed, anyway, and it wasn’t even bitter laughter. I guess maybe it’s actual irony.

I was trying to explain to Suzanne recently how I felt about him and our relationship (lack thereof) these days. I told her that when Rory was a newborn, I thought he was the most beautiful baby — glorious, gorgeous, amazing, so incredibly darling and delightful. Probably ten years later, I could look at his newborn photos and roll my eyes at myself. He was a newborn baby, born via natural childbirth after a long labor. He was squashed and splotchy and wrinkled, absolutely the little old man style of newborn, and definitely not beautiful. But I could still remember how it felt to look at him and believe that he was gorgeous. 

Up until a year ago, that was how I felt about him as a person. Sure, there were obviously moments like that first day of college, but I believed deeply, profoundly, with all my heart, that there was an incredible person inside of him, someone funny and sweet and loving and clever and kind. And now… well, now I know that person only exists in my imagination. The person I thought he was wouldn’t have ignored my phone calls and emails and text messages. Or the stocking stuffers I sent him, which would have made Imaginary Rory laugh. 

And Imaginary Rory — well, Imaginary Rory would have known that Zelda died, because someone would have told him, believing that he would care, and Imaginary Rory would have reached out. Imaginary Rory would have wanted to tell me that he was sad, too, that he remembered Zelda with love. Imaginary Rory would have reminded me of how fun she was as a puppy, and Imaginary Rory would have listened while I cried and told me that he wished he could be here to hug me. 

But all that is Imaginary Rory. Actual Rory is that guy from the first day of New College. I’m coming to terms with that, slowly but steadily. 

Somewhere along the way of his long silence, I found his girlfriend’s twitter account and was stunned to discover her level of drug use and alcohol use. And you know, no one is in a relationship with a heavy substance abuser and not abusing substances themselves. So is that an explanation for who he grew up to be? Maybe. Maybe someday I’ll get that Step 9 phone call. Or maybe not. Maybe he just is who he is, and that’s who he chooses to be. Either way, I’m working my way through my grief and someday, well, someday I’ll find the other side. 

The other day, Suzanne and I made one of our rare trips to CostCo, and I asked if she wanted to get a rotisserie chicken. Up until the week before her death, rotisserie chicken was one of the few foods that Zelda would reliably eat. The other animals all like it, too, right down to the chickens who LOVE tearing apart the carcass. Rotisserie chicken day is always an excellent day at the Mighty Small Farm. 

She said, “Yes? But I don’t want you to be sad.” 

I don’t think I said it this articulately, but I responded with something like, “I’ve had enough practice with grief by now to know that the only way out is through. You don’t get to make the feelings go away by avoiding them. They only go away when you’re finished with them.” 

I’m not finished yet. 

Someday soon, though. 

Olivia Murderpaws

Is this Olivia, thinking about transforming into Murderpaws? Most likely.

As long-time readers might remember, after I lost Bartleby, I cried every day for a month. I decided then that I needed a Zelda Loss Survival Plan, because if losing B was bad, losing Z would be… worse.

Unfortunately, my ZLSP was not prescient enough to account for Covid Times.

The Best Brother Ever offered me a plane ticket yesterday, if going somewhere and having something to look forward to would help. To Florida to visit my dad if that was what I needed; to Pennsylvania if… Well, if I could quarantine after I got there… somewhere… okay, yeah, maybe not.

Pretty much that floundering on the constraints of our current realities is what happens whenever I try to find something to look forward to. So I’m not trying to look forward, I’m just trying to get through one day at a time while doing my best to make healthy choices. No alcohol: depressed people shouldn’t consume depressants. No doom-scrolling: I don’t need to know how awful the world is. As little ruminating as possible on the things I can’t change and which aren’t mine to control.

And as much kitten time as my allergies can handle. Olivia Murderpaws, once known as Explorer Girl, is a personality.

The other day I said to Suzanne, comfortingly, “She’ll grow out of it. Once she’s not a kitten anymore…”

Suzanne winced.

I said, “No?”

Suzanne shrugged and said, “None of my other kittens have ever been…” She spread her hands as if encompassing the sheer essence of a Murderpaws was beyond her.

Murderpaws is pure predator. Nothing is better than attacking. The other cats, the dog, a leg, a scrap of paper, a piece of food, the dust in the air. She wishes to go everywhere, see everything, and then kill it. “Friends don’t bite friends,” usually said with a yelp, has become a catchphrase of the Mighty Small Farm. She’s three and a half months old and her demanding meows to be let outside (where she is not allowed, because she doesn’t have a chip yet) can be heard through the walls when you’re outside.

And then she switches gears and she is Olivia. She wants to purr and snuggle and be held. She wants to cozy up in your arms and have her belly rubbed, she wants to know that you, warm delightful person that you are, will talk to her and stay with her and love her.

Olivia is killer on my allergies; Murderpaws has very sharp teeth. Both of them are a lovely distraction from my grief.

Zelda, 1/23/2005 – 1/9/2021

January 8, 2021

Two and a half years ago, I read some article about canine dementia that said, referring to euthanasia, “Better a week too soon than a day too late.” 

I thought, “No way. Savor every minute.” 

Until the week began. 

Zelda has more days left. She’s still drinking, and she ate a handful of treats this morning. She looked in my eyes and recognized me a little while ago, and she got up to come sit closer to me. 

But we are out of good days. We went to the beach this morning and… she wasn’t there. She roamed, she walked, I let her off leash and she went as far as she could go along the line of beach, one step after another, determined to get to some destination that only she can see. 

But her heart wasn’t in it. It wasn’t curious sniffing, eager appreciation of the gallery of smells. It was trudging. 

At night, she walks and walks and walks until she gets stuck somewhere and then she whimpers — a sort of breathy sound that might be distressed breathing, might be weird snoring, but no, is crying. She has to be helped from her stuck place, whether it’s under the bed, in the corner, in the closet, trapped between the toilet and the wall. Stuck. She wants to go somewhere, but she can’t find the place she’s looking for. And she wobbles when she walks until she gets her footing, and then she walks and walks and walks. 

She hasn’t eaten real food for a few days now. A few bites of chicken apple sausage two days ago, a pupperoni yesterday, some Zuke’s today. But she’s still drinking water, which means she probably has at least three more days of life left in her, at least according to the internet. And it could be more. But I don’t think they will be good days, even if there are good moments. 

At the beach, two dogs were running, chasing a ball. Running the way dogs ought to run, running the way Z used to run. She had a moment where she was looking at them. And a moment where she was interested in the people with the dogs. But those moments are interspersed with a struggle that reminds me of my mother’s terminal restlessness in her last weeks of life, a desperate attempt to get somewhere, do something.

She’s such a tough little dog, she’s so determined. Do I think she could last another month? Maybe. Do I think it’ll be a good month, filled with joy? Nope. So I cry and cry and cry, the tears running down my face, trying not to do it loudly, trying not to make any sounds, trying not to upset her. And I bury my face in her fur and tell her how much I love her and that it’s okay, that I know she has to go, and that I will still love her, that I will always love her. 

But I wonder who will be there for her. That spirit, so persistent, so engaged, so centered on me for so long. For almost sixteen years, she has wanted to know where I am, always checking to make sure that I’m still near her, following me when I move. My shadow. I haven’t left her alone for months, except for quick runs to a grocery store. Now… I won’t be there. And I can’t fix that. 

Suzanne called the vet for me. We’re waiting for a call back, but it’s 4:20, and soon it’ll be dark and cold. Not raining, but if I’m going to help her leave me, I don’t want to do it in the dark. I just don’t. I guess that’s how I feel about the whole thing in general, but — well. Someday soon it will be that day too late, and I will have made my dog suffer because I couldn’t bear the suffering myself. That’s just not okay. That can’t be how this story ends. 

*****

January 9, 2021

The vet called this morning. I said no. Then I cried some more and said yes.

In the car on the way, my nose started to bleed. Not a little. It wasn’t dripping, it was gushing. Napkin after napkin (and thank God Suzanne had them), filled with blood. It wasn’t a metaphor, but if my life was a movie it would have been a stupidly obvious symbol. I would have rolled my eyes but I was too busy holding my nose.

I had to let her go inside the vet alone — damn Covid times — and it broke my heart. I’m not sure she was aware enough to care in the way that she would have desperately cared six months ago. But I knew I was breaking a promise I’d made her a year ago and it hurt. Oh, it hurt.

But after the vet examined her and talked to me on the phone, she and the tech brought her back out. I held her on a picnic bench in the sunshine and whispered to her, telling her all the things she needed to know, while the vet searched for a vein. That I loved her with all my heart, that she was the best dog ever — in contrast to Bartleby, who, you know, was good at loving me but not very good at learning to behave like a good dog. That she was smart and beautiful and adored, and that very soon now, very, very soon, she would not hurt anymore, and she should look for my mom. And she should run. She should run so far, so fast, run with all the joy of those other dogs on the beach. And maybe go swimming, too.

At the moment when she left — between the vet finishing with the needles and returning with the stethoscope — a voice in my head said, clear as day, present as any real sound, “I’m coming right back. Look for me.” Maybe it was my subconscious, trying to make this easier for me. That’s fine, if so. Go, subconscious, go. But I’m willing to believe that those were her last words to me. They do make it easier.

Only a little, though. The silence inside my tiny house is deafening.

My mom didn’t really like dogs until she met Z.

Home-made corn tortillas

I’d like to get better at taking food photos. I’m not making it a goal for 2021, though, because “I’d like to” doesn’t equal “I’m willing to do the work/make the investment in.” I already know that good lights & dishes & backgrounds are the keys to good food photography, and that creating a dedicated space is the best approach, and that’s just not going to happen. Not this year, anyway.

If I did take good food photos, though, this blog post would be one long line of them. Since Christmas day, we have had shrimp tacos (again), salmon tacos, cod tacos, chicken tacos, and steak tacos. Also huevos rancheros, enmoladas (aka tortillas folded with mole sauce), quesadillas (more than once, for me), and a dish that Rory and I made up years ago where you soak tortillas in egg and cook them like french toast, then sprinkle with green onion and hot sauce, roll them up, and eat them with your fingers, also more than once. Also plain tortillas, eaten with butter, or better yet, with yellowbird serrano sauce.

A not very good picture of our salmon tacos, missing a key ingredient — the yellowbird serrano sauce that started this whole thing.

I’m giving credit for the taco binge to the Yellowbird sauce. This isn’t a sponsored post or anything like that, but seriously, that sauce is so good! We used up our first bottle in record time and are now on our second, with a third sitting on the shelf for back-up.

The home-made corn tortillas do help, though. Having made them several times now, I think I’ll remember what I’ve learned, but tips for anyone else interested in trying:

The water needs to be hot, but not too hot. Hot tap water is fine, but you want to be able to touch it comfortably. If it’s too hot, it dries out the dough and makes it crumbly (and obviously, you can just add more water to fix it, but still, you’re making it harder on yourself than it needs to be.) As you start kneading, the dough will feel rough, sort of textured. The more you knead, the smoother it gets, and you want it to feel smooth. You’re done kneading when you can’t feel the texture of the corn anymore. Press and then rotate, usually four times. The side near the hinges of the press will always be flatter, so each side needs a turn near the hinges for an even tortilla. If you just press once, your tortilla will — well, it’ll probably be fine, really. But it won’t be as good as it could be. Start peeling the tortilla off the plastic (that you’ve pressed it between) over the pan on which you’re planning to cook it. Not over the floor. Definitely not over a dog’s mouth or a cat’s head.



Not corn tortillas. But rotisserie chicken day is everyone’s favorite. It’s a good thing that Suzanne doesn’t mind Zelda’s bad influence because the cats get in on the action, too, when rotisserie chicken enters the house.

Previous tortilla recipe for reference: Tortillas turn out to be ridiculously easy to make if you have the right tools, aka a cast iron skillet, a tortilla press, and a tortilla warmer. Also helpful, a heavy-duty ziplock bag. On two cups of masa (corn flour, available here at every grocery store), pour one and a half cups of very hot, but not boiling water. Let it sit for five minutes, then knead it for several minutes. If it’s too crumbly, add a little more water; if it’s too sticky, add a little more masa. Divide the dough into 12 – 16 equal-sized balls. (For me, using the Christmas cookie method of dividing the dough in half, then in half again, then in half again, then in half again, was a good way to get very evenly sized balls.) Heat a cast-iron skillet to fairly hot, but don’t add oil. Cut the heavy-duty freezer bag open and cover the tortilla press with it, and press each ball of masa individually between the plastic sides. Then cook it in the cast-iron pan for about thirty seconds per side or until it puffs up slightly. Put the tortillas in the tortilla warmer to stay nice until you’re ready to eat them.

Good-bye 2020, Hello 2021

In November 2019, I took a class called “Write Better Faster.” When the class ended, I went on a self-help binge, reading all the recommended books, as well as a few more I stumbled across along the way. These are the books I read (not including the several I didn’t finish for one reason or another):

The Power of Habit, Chuck Duhigg Triggers, Marshall GoldsmithDeep Work, Cal NewportVerbalize, Damon SuedeRising Strong, Brene Brown Wired for Story, Lisa CronPurple Cow, Seth GodinWinning the Story Wars, Jonah SachsThe Dip, Seth GodinStory Genius, Lisa CronINFJ Writer, Lauren SapalaThe Four Disciplines of Execution, Chris McChesney, Sean Covey, et alWriting into the Dark, Dean Wesley SmithWrite Your Novel from the Middle, James Scott BellThe Well-Designed Life, by Kyra BobinetYou’re a Badass by Jen SinceroThe Big Leap, Gay HendricksTiny Habits, BJ FoggThe Science of Getting Rich – Wallace WattleAtomic Habits, James ClearThe Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, Mark MansonHow Emotions Are Made, Lisa Feldman Barrett Stillness is the Key, Ryan HolidayWired for Joy, Laurel Mellin

If I was super together, I’d add links, but that feels like a lot of work. Instead, I’ll add a single link to the book that most stuck with me: Tiny Habits. I’m not going to re-review it, because I wrote about it in March and I also posted about what I’d learned in Ten Tips from Self-Help Books, but as 2020 ends, the concept of Shine is still helping me get through my days. If you have any reason to want to make changes in your life, Tiny Habits is a great book.

So looking backward and forward: when last year began, I decided not to make resolutions, but to have focus words instead. They were Create, Learn, and Appreciate. I’ve written about them before, too: Learn in 2020. Despite the challenges of the year — or maybe because of them? — I did a great job with my focus words. They literally gave me something to focus on when it felt like the world was falling apart.

But 2020 is over (thank goodness). Unlike a lot of people, I’m not really counting on 2021 being a better year. It ought to be, of course — the competition is steep! But I’m always cautious about predicting such things, mostly because a decade ago, when I wrote about what a horrible year 2010 had been, the universe responded with 2011, which was surreal. I still feel kind of like the universe was saying, “You want to whine? Here, let me give you something worth whining about.” Anyway, I hope for better things for 2021, but I’m not assuming we’ll get them.

But one of the things that many of the self-help books agree on is that living a good life means living mindfully, paying attention to your choices, noticing how you’re spending your time. My focus words helped me do that. They also helped me reset when I needed to. When life felt pointless and overwhelming, and getting out of bed seemed like too much bother, thinking about what I could learn and how I could create drew me onward.

So for 2021, my word is GRACE. Conveniently, it’s a nice word with many positive meanings, but I’m using it as an acronym.

G is for gratitude. Every day, I will acknowledge at least three things I’m grateful for. I do this already, so this isn’t a change, just a continuation of a healthy mental habit.

R is for reading. Every day, I’ll record what I’ve read. I’m not setting goals for how much or what to read, but I think paying attention to what I’m reading will be interesting. I’m hoping it leads to less doom-scrolling my way through the internet and more time in books, whether fiction or non-fiction.

A is for Art. Every day, I will do something that relates to artistic expression. It might be as pointless as drawing on my chalkboards, or it might be taking a photograph, creating a book cover, learning something new in my software programs. Maybe even appreciating someone else’s art? Maybe writing, even? This one is probably going to evolve through the year, but my feeling around this word is all about curiosity, exploration, creativity, learning, fun. I want to make sure that my days include creative fun and Art is my word to represent that goal.

Of course, I could have used C, as in Create, for that goal. But nope, this year C is for cooking. Every day, I’m going to record what I cooked. As with the reading, I don’t mean this as pressure: if I don’t cook on a given day or even a given few days, that’s fine. It’s not about making myself do things that I don’t want to do, it’s just about paying attention to what I’m already doing. Ideally, though, I’m hoping it will encourage some creative fun in cooking, too. I’m not trying to become a better cook, but I do like expanding my repertoire. Corn tortillas for the win.

Finally, E is probably obvious. Exercise. Sigh. Yeah, not my favorite. But isolation has not been good for my physical well-being. Well, isolation combined with allergies. I know that I need to be moving more, and I also know — all the self-help books agree on this! — that tracking your activity and paying attention to it are the cornerstones of change. G, R, and C are about paying attention to things I already do, A is partially aspirational, but E is definitely about getting better at something I don’t do nearly enough of. So I’ll track my exercise and push myself to do more of it, whether that’s longer walks, online yoga classes or even just jumping jacks in the garden.

Obviously, I could have made some other acronyms with these goals. Tracking what I cook isn’t really much of a challenge, so I could have stuck with gratitudes, art, exercise and reading and called 2021 the Gear Year. I considered including meditation (something I used to love and have almost entirely given up because I can’t stand being in my own brain these days), for Gamer, or I could have really simplified and gone with just meditation and exercise for a ME year. I always do gratitudes and have for years, so they don’t really need to be included in a resolution-type goal. Really the possibilities were endless. But I knew when I thought of grace that it was the right word for 2021. One of its many definitions is “the free and unmerited favor of God” and we could all use some of that these days.

So here’s to 2021 — may it be a year filled with grace!

Boxing Day 2020

I spent the entire month of December — and honestly, most of November, too — dreading the holidays and doing my best to avoid thinking about them. The “will he/won’t he” question of whether my estranged son would demonstrate some basic human compassion and reach out to let me know that he’s alive was a huge part of it. (Spoiler alert: nope.) But I also just couldn’t picture the holiday without family, without church, without any of the rituals of my childhood.

As it happened, it was an incredibly nice Christmas. Ha. I don’t know whether all the dread actually made it better? Maybe I was so poised for it to be horrible that anything would have been better than my worst fears. But nope, it was actually just a really great day.

Suzanne and I dabbled in Christmas preparations ahead of time: we didn’t get a tree, but we put up Christmas lights on our respective houses, and we agreed to exchange stocking stuffers. And then we both bought stockings so that we’d have someplace to put said stocking stuffers! We hung the stockings in her house, along with one for the dogs and one for the cats.

First thing in the morning, well before daylight, I made a pot of coffee and brought it over to her house so we could open presents. (I knew she was awake, because we play an online game, Spelling Bee, and we were both adding words to it by 6AM.) We did such good jobs of present-giving! Also, great minds and all that — both stockings included socks and chocolate caramels. Ha. Hers also included t-shirts and a jigsaw puzzle and a tortilla warmer; and mine included some stickers I’d admired, a set of bamboo camping utensils, and a gift card for the cupcake store. We each also had a few presents from other people, my favorite of which was a magnet from Christina that so made me laugh…

The chickens love me, but I don’t think I can make them sing!

We laughed a lot and drank our coffee and I ate gluten-free Christmas cookies that Suzanne’s awesome next-door neighbor had brought over on Christmas Eve. Then I came back to Serendipity and started calling people: my dad, my brother, Christina and Greg, my sister. With the spirit of Christmas on me, I even called R. He didn’t answer, but I left him a message wishing him a Merry Christmas, and I tried not to let myself get overwhelmed with sadness.

Instead I dragged Suzanne and the dogs off to the beach. Not that it was hard — even on a gray and rainy day, S & the dogs are always enthusiastic beach goers. But it was solidly rainy, so instead of going to one of our usual walking beaches, we drove down the Samoa peninsula to Humboldt Bay’s bleakly famous North Jetty. Bleakly famous, because it could easily be haunted from the number of tragedies that have happened there. We didn’t go anywhere near the jetty, but we admired the waves from a distance and appreciated the ocean air. And got really wet. I’d brought a cup of tea along, sort of randomly, and I’m not sure I’ve ever appreciated tea more than when I got back into the car and realized my coffee mug had kept it so hot that it was still almost undrinkable. Yum, hot mint tea on a rainy day.

On our drive home, we saw a rainbow that was actually more of a splotch of color in the sky than an arch. Beautiful and odd — what does one call a rainbow when it’s a circle, not a bow?

Our Christmas dinner plan was — well, unusual, maybe? Earlier in the month, I’d made a pork roast for dinner one night. The next night, I made pork tacos from leftover pork. But we used corn tortillas from the grocery store and they were terrible. During the course of our dinner conversation that night, I decided that my goal for 2021 was going to be to learn how to make homemade corn tortillas. Good homemade corn tortillas. Suzanne was a little dubious, but onboard for any experiments I wanted to make. She was also, conveniently, the proud owner of a very nice handmade tortilla press that was gathering dust and cobwebs in the cupboard.

Under most circumstances, I wouldn’t pick a major holiday as a day to try something totally new, but given the 2020 situation, why not, right? My plan for dinner was shrimp tacos and if the tortillas were disastrous, shrimp rice bowls.

The tortillas were not disastrous. Tortillas turn out to be ridiculously easy to make if you have the right tools, aka a cast iron skillet, a tortilla press, and a tortilla warmer. Also helpful, a heavy-duty ziplock bag. On two cups of masa (corn flour, available here at every grocery store), pour one and a half cups of very hot, but not boiling water. Let it sit for five minutes, then knead it for several minutes. If it’s too crumbly, add a little more water; if it’s too sticky, add a little more masa. Divide the dough into 16 equal-sized balls. (For me, using the Christmas cookie method of dividing the dough in half, then in half again, then in half again, then in half again, was a good way to get very evenly sized balls.) Heat a cast-iron skillet to fairly hot, but don’t add oil. Cut the heavy-duty freezer bag open and cover the tortilla press with it, and press each ball of masa individually between the plastic sides. Then cook it in the cast-iron pan for about thirty seconds per side or until it puffs up slightly. Put the tortillas in the tortilla warmer to stay nice until you’re ready to eat them.

As a goal for 2021, learning how to make good homemade corn tortillas feels really satisfying, because DONE. They were great. As it happened, we didn’t have the jerk seasoning I thought we had, and the shrimp was disappointingly bland IMO, but the tacos were delicious. Yum. So good that I’m contemplating making them for lunch now, because even though it’s only 9:30AM, I’ve made myself hungry.

After dinner — early, because the tortillas were a lot less time-consuming than I’d envisioned — we took the dogs for a walk. Just our usual walk, down to the end of the street and back again, but the weather had improved and it was a beautiful late afternoon. We talked about traveling and food, trips that we want to take, places we’d like to eat. It was a thoroughly satisfying envisioning of a future with possibilities rich and interesting.

I’m so relieved to have the holidays almost over. Do I think that life is miraculously going to get better, that my grief will magically disappear, that the world will suddenly become a sane place again? Well, not really, actually. But I had a really nice Christmas, and for today, that is sufficient unto the day.

Beach Days

It was 54 degrees in my bathroom this morning, which I concluded was too cold to shower. So I’m writing from under the covers while I wait for the bathroom heater to work its magic. 

Last night, Zelda’s shivering was so pronounced that she was making the bed vibrate. I tried to get her to snuggle with me, but she wouldn’t. Then I tried to cover her with blankets, but she moved away, back to her uncovered state at the end of the bed. 

What I did not do was get up and turn the heat on. My sleepy brain wondered why she was so cold, but I never woke up enough to think, “Hmm, could it be that you turned the heat off yesterday because it was such a gloriously beautiful day?” 

I did. Because it was.

[image error]Riley went swimming.

We took the dogs to Moonstone Beach. Suzanne went barefoot, Riley went swimming, and Zelda and I were at least warm enough to not wear our respective jackets. Moonstone is the local beach we go to least often, because it’s usually crowded, but on a Monday morning in December, it was mostly deserted — one family there with a dog, and one solo walker. So beautiful, though. Churning waves, blue sky, a light mist rising from the water and the sun actually warm on my skin. Not what I imagined December in northern California would be like.

[image error]Another view of the same beach, on the same day. Zelda did not get to go off-leash, because she is unreliable, but I did let go of the leash for a bit, when we were very far away from cars and parking lots and highways.

When we came home, I finished a cleaning project I’d undertaken first thing in the morning: organizing ALL the things. I moved into the tiny house in pieces, things drifting in from Serenity slowly. For a long time, I was pretending to myself that it was temporary, that I was going to be on my way again in the very near future. Arcata was where I was going to settle *when* I settled. Not now, not yet. 

Yes, now. Yes, yet. 

Things therefore needed places. Real homes, not just in bins randomly stuffed with whatever had wandered in together. The title to the van belonged with important paperwork, not sandpaper, and the sandpaper belonged with hardware supplies, not sidewalk chalk. (Why sandpaper and sidewalk chalk? Apparently when I rejoined the world of owning stuff, art projects were high on my list of reasons to accumulate clutter.) 

The nice thing about living in a tiny house, though, is that projects like “organize ALL the stuff” don’t actually take that long. When I think back to how long it took me to clean out my house before selling it (weeks, literally)… well, I have no regrets. By mid-afternoon, the tiny house was clean and organized, everything in a proper place. 

I feel like the only concession we’re making to the fact that it’s winter — well, apart from putting Christmas lights up, which I also did this weekend — is in the food we’re eating. I don’t have any lovely pictures, but I’ve made stuffed squash a couple of times, which is basically baked squash filled with a mix of sautéed things — most recently, chicken-apple sausage, leftover rice, mushroom, apple, parsley, & pecans — then topped with some cheese and baked a little more so the cheese melts. Oh, and then finished with cranberry sauce, which is absolutely necessary IMO. Yesterday’s dinner was also autumnal: carrots, parsnips, mushrooms, onion, broccoli, tossed with olive oil and dried herbs, then roasted in a pan with some sliced up chicken apple sausage. Super simple, again served with cranberry sauce. It felt hearty and healthy and filling and very, very wintery.

I guess the other concession to winter — although is it conceding, when you really have no choice? — is that by my standards it is really darn cold. Not freezing much, but I’m finding it hard to motivate myself to walk the dog when it’s 40 degrees outside. But it’s almost 11 now, warm inside, and warmer out, and Z and Riley would both probably like a walk. And the sun is shining so I should take advantage. This is supposed to be the rainy season — days of endless rain, I’ve been warned! — so it’s time to appreciate the sun while it’s here.

Some Looks Are Deceiving

Some looks are deceiving. Look at this adorable sweet kitten face:

[image error]

Doesn’t she look sweet? A little scared, a little worried. This big world might be too much for her, don’t you think?

[image error]

Or this one. It’s like she’s saying, “Me? I’m completely harmless. Totally innocent. I can’t imagine what sort of trouble you think I could get into.”

Ha.

Some looks are not deceiving. Like this one:

[image error]

As baleful a look as any I have ever seen on Gina’s face. If she could speak, she’d be saying something like, “On your heads be it, fools.”

Olivia, formerly Explorer Girl, is the busiest small creature I have ever met. She is a big fan of sneaking up behind you when you’re working at the stove, so you can freak out about nearly stepping on her while cooking. Also a big fan of attacking unsuspecting dogs’ tails. Also a big fan of trying to chew on power cords, yummm, so delicious. She is definitely a little lion at heart. All things must be leaped on, climbed on, jumped from, and attacked.

She’s also, of course, completely adorable, in that way that only baby things can be. At the moment, the other cats are not terribly pleased about this interloper, but it is really nice to be spending the last few weeks of 2020 focused on a kitten. She’s an excellent addition to the Mighty Small Farm!

Adventures on the Mighty Small Farm

Last night, around 9PM, I heard a weird noise outside my door. I got up, looked out, determined that the downspout from the gutter had fallen (not unusual, it’s not properly connected), and went back to my computer. 

Then I heard another weird noise. I got up, looked out, decided that the gate (propped open for animal convenience) must have been blowing in the wind. I latched it closed, and went back to my computer. 

Then I heard the weird noise again. I should probably describe the weird noise, right? It was lightweight banging, the kind of thing that could easily be mistaken for a downspout knocking into a wooden fence or a gate swinging loose. But this time, I knew it wasn’t the downspout or the gate. I got up, looked out, and saw the back end of a dog disappearing into the garden. 

Ah, Riley (Suzanne’s dog) must have been crawling through the opening at the bottom of the gate. Mystery solved, I went back to my computer. 

But as I tried to get back to my game, I was a little puzzled. What was Riley doing running around the yard after 9PM? Especially on a cold, damp night. Sure, he might come out for a quick bathroom break before bedtime, but it was a little late for that, and he wouldn’t be raucous about it. He’d do his business and get inside ASAP. 

Also, when had Riley ever been noisy in the backyard? He goes through that opening all the time. He’s been putting on a little weight from the very bad influence of Zelda,* but not so much that he should be banging things around. 

And then I heard the noise again. This time, with enough previous information, I knew it was clearly the gate, and that Riley had crawled through the opening to go into the front yard. I got up. Barefoot, in my pajamas, I went outside. It was cold, but I didn’t intend to be out for more than the minute it would take to grab Riley and take him in to the kitchen. I didn’t know why Suzanne had let him out, but whatever he was doing, he shouldn’t be doing it. 

So I went out in the dark — it was a beautiful night, btw, with lovely stars, despite the chill — and into the front yard, where I could see the dark shape of a dog pacing along the front fence. 

“What in the world are you doing, Riley?” I was saying in my crankiest voice as I approached, my feet already cold against the rough ground. 

The dog turned around. 

It was not Riley. 

But he was happy to see me. Tail wagging, relieved doggie sigh. If he had words, they would have been something like, “Oh, Human, thank goodness. Please, Person-I-Don’t-Know, please get me home now. I thought I wanted to be here, but now I don’t anymore. This was all just a huge mistake.” 

I was 90% sure I knew who he was and where he belonged, but I was also in my pajamas and barefoot. So I ran inside and said, “Suzanne, I’m so sorry to disturb you, but I think Hank is in the yard.” Suzanne promptly got up, grabbed a leash, put her shoes and a jacket on, and took Hank home, aka next door. 

End of story. 

Until this morning.

I got up around 6:30 or so and took the dogs for a lovely foggy walk. I was just getting back as Suzanne was leaving for work. We were saying whatever good morning type things one says when one crosses paths at 7:25 in the morning when I said, “Oh, wow. The chickens are exploring.” 

Hank had apparently come in through the chicken coop. He’d managed to push the wire loose and wiggle in. Once inside, he’d gotten the lid off the can of chicken feed and helped himself to a generous serving before deciding it was time to find his way home. In the morning, the chickens wasted no time in discovering their freedom and taking full advantage. At least eight of them, maybe more, were wandering around the yard. 

[image error]The chickens, Mary-Mary in front, saying “Hmm, surely there are seeds here that we could be eating?”

Suzanne was not thrilled. She needed to get to work, not chase chickens through the garden. But I spent my summer chasing Mary-Mary-Quite-Contrary around, so after taking a couple of quick photos, I grabbed a bag of chicken treats from my stash in the tiny house, went into the coop and started sprinkling seeds around liberally. In no time, all chickens were safely at home, and Suzanne was on her way to work. 

Yep, these are the adventures of the mighty small farm. The best kind of adventures there are, I think.

*Have I mentioned before that Riley has turned into Zelda’s personal emotional support dog? Convincing her to eat is always a challenge these days — with the canine dementia, she seems to be forgetting what you’re meant to do with food. But she will sometimes eat food that has Riley’s spit on it, and once she’s started eating, she will often continue until she’s had enough, so Riley gets to lick the chicken/meatloaf/roast beef/sausage/whatever and then we take it away from him and give it to Zelda. Obviously, this is dog torture, so of course Riley has to get some bites, too. I think he thinks it’s a worthy trade-off. 

A Eureka Anniversary

Ten years ago, almost to the day, I fell so much in love with the television show Eureka that I searched online for news about the next season, and discovered fanfiction. I’d never even heard of fanfiction before, much less read it, but I promptly read all the Eureka stories that were available.

None of them were quite right. None of them were what I wanted the story to be. So I wrote my own. I published it on 11/9/2010. And then I added a chapter, because people said nice things about it. Then I wrote a whole story, with a plot as much like a Eureka episode as I could manage — crazy science, familiar characters, the diner, and the smart house named SARAH. It was called An Australian Werewolf in Eureka, and literally, ten years ago today, I would have been three days into writing it. It took me a week — the first chapter was posted on 11/14 and the last on 11/21 — and was 20,894 words long.

Then I wrote another story and another and another, and eventually I stopped writing fanfiction and started writing fiction, ie stories set in my own worlds with characters from my own imagination.

Then I quit my job, published a book, dropped out of grad school, published another couple of books, sold my house and moved into a van, published a few more books, and spent four years wandering around the country.

Today I stood in the Eureka, California DMV, and made it official: I live in California now. Not quite in Eureka, but just a few miles away. And it is so amazing and weird and amusing to me that there is such a direct causal link between falling in love with a television show named Eureka and winding up living here, in this delightful quirky small town.

This isn’t what I expected for my life. This isn’t even what I expected at the beginning of the year. But I really am grateful every single day that I wound up here, and for what came into my life from that incredibly random moment of sitting down next to my son and saying, “What’s this show about?”