Flashback

So, remember this http://quadness.blogspot.com/2009/03/schoner-gigolo.html ?

Well, this is why I'm friends with Kelly...

orange and red

soooo, I miss you guys! I made this kale and white bean minestrone soup last night and think that everyone on the blog would like it. I loosely followed the recipe from cookus interruptus and it was amazing! It did need extra seasoning, but overall it was super easy and really fast so I thought I would share it and also procrastinate :)
It is on the website below.
http://www.cookusinterruptus.com/index.php?video_id=158

Its also a nice rainy day outside, perfect for staying in your pajamas all day and reading a book and baking muffins :)

I Want To Set My Mother On Fire

So after many months of discussing an all-vegetarian menu for the nuptials, and me actually SENDING OUT a sample menu to my parents/matt's/the chef in June, my parents disclosed today that they think not serving meat is inappropriate. It was actually stated "how can you expect people to drive up here and rent hotel room when you refuse to serve them a proper meal."

I've scouted out about 50 recipes for vegetable-based dishes that I think look fabu. Risottos, gluten-free pasta dishes, polenta-based vegetable mountains... How is eating one meal comprised of vegetables an inconvenience to anyone? I just don't see it. I perceive that it's different. Perhaps unexpected. I just don't see how it is a problem.

Does anyone have any suggestions for how to handle this? NNTM, aka she-who-mingles-freely-with-the-carnivorous-texan-kind? I'm furious and reaching for wine...

i love you guys

I love my weird cakes. And how like you guys to know that one is just not enough for me :) The 10 lbs I've gained in the past month thanks you, too :)

I'm also really excited for pumpkin beer time and thought of you all last night when I was drinking Southern Tier's Pumking Imperial (the last bottle in the store -- the store/pub called The Bier Stein, which is my new favorite place in Eugene... ).

Love you all.

~Me

Happy Birthday (again), MCS!

Happy Birthday Spadster!

This Firecrotch has been blazing for 27 glorious years!

Have a great one Ern Blr!

Local, to our hearts at least

Ethnicity/Segregation in the US

http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/sets/72157624812674967/

For Gwyn

(and me...and possibly Abby and Becca and Liz - so basically for everyone besides Erica and Nicky :))

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11372095

Person to Love: Marian Henley

The 5-Question [Author+Creative] Interview

Happy Birthday Gwyn!

:)

Four Mile Canyon Wildfire

What a strange 2 days it's been. Arriving back in Denver from Austin, TX yesterday, we were greeted by a plume of smoke stretching toward our car from the Boulder Foothills. Fast forward 45 minutes, and we had reached Boulder and were driving under an enormous cloud to get out to our house in Gunbarrel. Tiny particles of ash fell on us and the light was orange through the smoke. Fortunately, we are several highways and outside of the forest (approx. 9 miles from the fire), so we found out we're not in danger. But it's wild seeing the sky lit up with smoke and an orange glow over the hill at night and then hazy smoke clouds during the day. It also smells like an intense camp fire anywhere you go, even inside. So far, the fire has burned 3500 acres and countless houses but it seems no one was hurt.

We are safe and not in the fire zone. We're keeping track of course, and I registered us for emergency updates to be texted to us from the County. If you want more info or to keep track with us, here's where we're getting our info:

wildfiretoday.com/

Boulder Fire - Google Maps

Here's what we were seeing yesterday on our drive home


Love you guys

Kind of like an even-worse Marley & Me

I did not have a chance to deliver a eulogy, but I feel that I have to say something somewhere about Bailey's passing. I want to remember him, how we met him, and why we loved him. Since you've known him about as long as we have (Liz, at least, to the very day), this is my memorial quad blog post for Bailey.

My parents buried him quietly in woods behind their house nestled amongst the graves of Dixie, a sassy Jack-Russell; Lady, the gentlest chocolate lab I've ever met (except, perhaps, for Mike); and Bradley, the dinosaur who manage to convince the world that he was a dog. After flying back to the states a few weeks ago, Matt drove up to my parents' house to pick up Zoey and solemnly carried her to the car. Even over Skype, it was clear to me that neither of them was sure how to proceed. For the past five years Bailey has been an integral part of Matt's and my life together. Now, without him, our family is different.

We met Bailey on beach day. After a heavily lubricated afternoon made memorable by Erin's epically mismatched bikini and long visit to Daffodil Valley, Liz and I came barreling up the driveway to Bushwood in the my old red convertible propelled by the carefree acceleration of a young driver who has never gotten a speeding ticket. An eclectic crowd of people were gathered in the front yard and, although this sight was somewhat of a fixture at Bushwood, on this day they had congregated to welcome, or rather examine, a guest. He was little more than a pile of fur and we spent the rest of the afternoon puzzling over his presence, guessing his age and, given the state he was in, attempting to ascertain what diseases he was likely to have. It seemed clear, almost at once, that if he was going to live, he was going to live with us. Though given his evidently deteriorated health, his survival was far from certain.

Matt, together with the housemates, spent days removing ticks and trying to nurse him back to health. We were washing him daily to banish the fleas and chip away at the layers of stray-dog grime. One afternoon Rugby Emily and I were outside rinsing him off and, although we could tell that he loathed the activity, he little more than winced to show his displeasure. She gravely observed, "he has no fight left in him." Bitten, bruised and weary - -his forlorn expression belied the reality that his life had been clouded by struggle, a conclusion further evidenced by his nonchalance about eating bugs. After we finished she went back inside, beckoned by Larry and the smell of a favored herb. I looked down at him, forcing a smile to liven his spirits, as I explained "I know you were a hunting dog but I'm a vegetarian so I'd like for you to consider a change in lifestyle." Suddenly, a firetruck drove by, its siren piercing the Southern Maryland silence, temporarily deafening us both. In that moment, I instinctively grabbed him and held him to me, covering his ears with my body. As the siren faded into the distance, he looked up at me, and his resignation had melted into a warm curiosity. I believe that this was the moment that he realized I wanted to be his friend.

Matt still loves to tell people about the first time we gave him a bath inside. We meticulously washed every nook and cranny of his body and, upon pronouncing him clean (or as close to clean as he would ever get) we swaddled him in a towel and cooed at him until he was dry. Wiggling himself free from the bundle, without hesitation, he bolted through the screen door and leapt headfirst into the biggest mud puddle I've ever seen. He languished in that mud with orgasmic fury only pronouncing his work complete after every last bit of his body was encapsulated by filth. I think after that we gave up, grabbed some beer, and took him down to the River.

This confused stray became our dog Bailey in Stone Harbor a few weeks later when we all gathered to celebrate rain, the repeal of prohibition, and fleeting moments of collegiate glory. Unsure of who would care for Bailey while he was at the beach, Matt loaded Bailey into his car headed north. On that trip, and subsequent trips for at least the next year or so, Bailey insisted upon riding at Matt's feet while he drove, wedged between the break and the outside door. Treacherous as this was, we entertained it, though we've never quite figured out why he liked sitting there so much. (someone told us that it has something to do with the layout of pickup trucks) While in Stone Harbor, Liz (I think) took the first picture of Bailey that we have. He and Matt are nestled on the carpet. In that picture, I noticed that the upturned corners of Bailey's mouth looked vaguely like the beginnings of a smile.

I would never claim that he fully adjusted to city life with us, moving from Bushwood to my parents', to Matt's parents', to Columbia Heights, then to Cleveland Park over the course of only a few years. Shortly after adopting him, and regularly throughout the time he lived with us, we would let him loose to run either behind Bushwood or, later, in the vast wilderness of northern Montgomery County behind my parents' house. We felt like he was only ever "ours" as a technicality imposed by the structure of society and animal control laws, and that if he didn't come back we were lousy dog parents and didn't deserve him. He always came back, and a regular sight outside my parents' front door (and Matts' parents', on occasion, as well) became Bailey, politely sitting upright on the step waiting to be attended to. After spotting him through the window, someone would proclaim "Bailey's home" and we'd all rush to the door, petting him and celebrating his renewed decision to spend his life with his. As ill-fitting as his urban existence was, Bailey looked marvelous in a sweater and he always indulged my desire to outfit him in one. I only regret that I never experimented with a top hat.

Although he did not prefer apartments, Bailey was an excellent traveler and he logged plenty of frequent rider miles on car trips to the Florida Keys, Asheville, Chapel Hill, Cape Cod, Ithaca, Atlanta, Rehoboth Beach and the Outer Banks, to name a few. He often shared the backseat with his beloved Auntie Erin, Auntie Becca, or Auntie Carmela and I think some of his happiest memories are of hiking with a pack (literally) of dogs in Gwyn's backyard. I think all of you have welcomed him into your home at one time or another whether in Lizzie and Becca's townhouse their senior year, Abby's Ithacan abode (even despite his often abrasive behavior towards Jack), and Gwyn's townhouse that, for all of us by this point, has become like the club house for our annual summer camp in upstate. On one trip in early Spring 2008 spent camping adjacent to a patch of rapids in the Blue Ridge mountains, Matt and I had only just begun to set up camp as the sun was setting. In the interest of efficiency, I suggested that I finish assembling our tent while he went in to "town" (one of two log cabins several miles away) to grab something for dinner. As the light faded, Bailey and I crawled into the tent and sealed it shut, not oblivious to the plummeting temperature and how easily we could still see our breath in the air. I cradled him in my arms and, although we were spooning comfortably, his eyes were wide and I could tell he was listening to the sounds of the forest, poised to protect us from danger. On subsequent trips, Matt and I realized that Bailey never slept during the night when we went camping because he was standing guard. Matt returned eventually and the next morning as we checked out of the North Carolina park, the ranger congratulated us on making it through the night alive as the temperatures had dipped into the low 20s. I'm not sure how we would have fared without Bailey.

Matt and I learned that he died on July 28 while we were playing cards in a bus station in Rio on our way to the tiny beach village of Buzios. We had known for a few weeks that he was sick, that antibiotics weren't helping and that the distant, pained little face that my mom held up to the webcam didn't seem to be showing signs of improvement. My parents did everything they could to save him, followed every vet's suggestion, and I find some peace in the conclusion that nothing could have been done. My dad came inside from gardening one balmy evening when he found Bailey lying motionless on his bed, with Zoey cuddled against him. My dad swears that Bailey was smiling.

Despite the flaws in our lifestyle and, god knows, our personalities, I believe that Bailey was happy with us. And, wherever he is now, I hope he is at peace. I am so grateful that he was our dog.