Is This Really for Real??

Welsh shepherds. Seriously? This is possible? My dog is dumber than I thought.

Walk in the woods

Joshua, Kima and I picked up Johanna this weekend, meeting up with Ian and Lucy and their springer spaniel, Buster at the Meadow (Jerusalem Mills). I used to take Kima here on a long line, before she was trained, so she could run around in a large open area, easily kept away from other dogs. In the fall we did a couple hikes with the E-collar that she did well on, and since it was so beautiful on Sunday, and she needs more dog-time, we went up. Buster is a marvelous doggy dog, rolling around in the grass every chance he gets, and kept engaged through Lucy's fun training classes (he's now learned to put away all his toys into a basket). He has problems greeting other dogs nicely while on leash, so we decided to go for a hike all together, staying at least 4 feet away.

Both dogs did great - Kima did not once growl or misbehave, though she kept one eye on Buster at all times. Buster in turn ignored her completely, as he does with most girl dogs. Everyone was very pleased with the hike - and with the doggies!

We brought the camera but once again forgot to take any pics until the very end, so this is all you get.

Huzzah, no cavities

I really like my dentist, which is good, because I always forget how unnerving it actually is to have all the plaque scratched off your teeth.

Major crush

From thursdaynightsmackdown. Seriously. You must read this girl.

You know what I’m liking about this book [Chanterelle], aside from all the pr0n? The dishes are refined but accessible; elegant, but something you can pull off outside the professional kitchen - and it’s written to help you succeed, not fail. Did that sound a little douchy? Maybe, but it’s trust. Also you can use veal stock you bought from Fresh Direct (seriously, their house stocks are good - real ingredients, filled with luscious collagen) directly from the container and Thomas Keller will not send one of his goons to your house to go all Tonya Harding on your kneecaps with a chinois.

New England Vacation

I found a new route to Philly last Wednesday that got me from work to Spruce Street in 2 hours! No more Baltimore Pike (which is in Philly) - bring me the Cobbs Creek Parkway!

Anyway, then our vacation started, and we drove up to a small town in Western Mass to meet some of Joshua's relatives. They were exceedingly nice, with a multitude of Indonesian blue fabric, and handknit sweaters. Dinner was delicious and a good time was had by all, and I suspect I scored some points by ordering the spicy ginger tea.

In the morning we gathered cross country ski equipment (utilizing the Honda's ski pass through!) and drove up to Prospect, a place where people go skiing. They used to go downhill, there, and now they just go across the hills. It was BEAUTIFUL, about 40 degrees, with fresh snow, and sun, and soon I was falling on my butt learning to skate ski. Which is just like skating, except your skates are nine miles long and flopping around all over the place, especially underneath each other. And these ones in particular are 90 years old and were subjected to multiple seasons of ski jumping and other things they were not designed for.

Of course, then Joshua puts them and skate-skis away and declares them perfectly fine. I know, however, that my left one is NOT edging as well as it should. But I carry on. And fall some more. By the time we get to the Beaver Pond, however, I have it mostly figured out, and I am allowed to use the poles, and but oops you have to make sure while you are figuring out (by yourself) how to plant them both at the same time that you place them OUTSIDE your skis and not inside of your knee, as this causes Failure.

So we skiied around a little more and go back to the Lodge for lunch, which consists of the pulled pork sandwich we picked up at the Vermont Country Deli hours earlier, and the black bean/bread bowl soup that Steve makes, and then it's time to learn Classic! Which is the sort of jogging, parallel type of skiing that is not at all like skating but which you do with your NordicTrack. This is ok but I am pretty beat and having a hard time not sliding back down the hills. Apparently I was not 'stomping' hard enough. Fine! I mosey back to the lodge and read Watchmen as Williams College and some high school teams come in for practice.

Round about 4pm Mr J gets beat as well so we head back to the Bennington Motor Inn, which is quite nice and very modestly priced, and figure out dinner at the Madison Brewery, which has mediocre beer and a bartender whose father (the owner), thinks Joshua is an Arab. Now before you go all 'those Vermonters are racist rabid pro American anti-terrorist fascists!', let me say that the bartender points up to a picture of the family above the bar, and they are wearing little fezzes, and they are from Lebanon, so it's actually more of a problem that he is NOT an Arab. So the bartender is half Lebanese and also loves to Giant Slalom on the halfpipe. Which, you know, is maybe what the cool Vermonters do? I wouldn't know, as I am from a place without topography.

So then zzzzzzzz. And soreness. And why are going back to ski some more? But we do, and I rent actual skate-skis and the post-1995 skate-ski-boots, which have ankle support like lightweight rollerblades, and it's like a whole different ballgame, boy howdy. I am zooming all over the place, except that oh shoot, I am TOTALLY EXHAUSTED. But that left edge it is working, lemme tell ya. Also it is warmer and the snow is 'slower' so my little wool shirt is too hot and I've got my sleeves pushed up and am panting, but still I beat J back to baselodge, ha ha! I notice that there are lots of little gnomes and ceramic animals hidden along the trails. This is adorable.

Friday night we eat at Allegro, where they make the BEST spinach salad ever. Here's the recipe, as we understood it:

Take an entire bag of spinach.
Make a dressing with gorgonzola and butter, involving a food processor.
Poach some pears in red wine
Roast some cipollini onions until soft and brownish
Dice some grilled chicken
Heat your dressing and reduce the red wine pear liquid that the pears were poaching in
Dump entire bag of spinach on a plate, cover with warm dressing, artfully tuck small pieces of chicken in amongst the leaves, and place pears and onions on the side. Drizzle pear-wine reduction around on top and on the sides of the plate.

Then we went to see Watchmen at the local Cineplex. It was really long, and just like the book. And really violent. And with a gratuitous campy sex scene that was silly in a bad way and went on for far too long. And did I mention violent? I stopped watching after a while. I agree with ThursdayNightSmackdown's assessment and I will probably finish the graphic novel to get the bad taste out of my mouth.

Saturday we were supposed to go skating on Lake Morey but it was 60 degrees and everyone at Lake Morey (east-central VT) was going up to Lake Willoughby (in the Northeast Kingdom, where Hobbits and Gnomes aren't just lawn ornaments) to see if the ice there was any good. So, eh, next time, let's just go to Brattleboro and EAT EVERYTHING. Which we did. We ate the mozzarella-red pepper pesto panini at Amy's Cafe, who also make some serious apple cider, and we drank 8 types of Trappist Ales at this little wine store with cool pendant lamps over the tables, with a tapering/widening checkerboard pattern on them, where I won a Goblet for Rochefort Ale (all the Abbeys have their own shapes of glass goblets for their own ales, see, even the monks know how to merchandise their products!). We tried to go to Fireworks, the new pizza place, which looked awesome, but it was kind of a wait, and we had to go see the Sweetback Sisters, who are four dudes and two ladies who sing old honky tonk from Roger Miller and Hank Williams and Willy Nelson and Hazel Dickens and the Louvin Brothers, etc etc. They were fantastic. And the little theatre we were in was great too - an alleyway that they had covered and walled in, with the old stone side of the building next door exposed.

Lots of art in Brattleboro. Our hotel was an art deco movie theatre (still operating!) and every other store was an antique store or gallery of local art of some sort. We went to the Coop where I spent about 90 minutes trying to figure out what the hell maple syrup to buy.

Sunday we headed back to Joshua's relatives' house in Western Mass, for lunch and a walk to Antonio's Pizza. J, unable to locate the poppyseed kuchen purveyor on our way into town, was pleased to discover his relative read his mind and had prepared one earlier that morning.

And then back in Philly we got to meet Zora F G, who is two weeks old, and also see West Philly's Premiere Compost Bin (and Rain Barrel), which was also a highlight.

A really Good Vacation! Sorry there are no pics. We are super lame.

Wonkette not always, but sometimes worth reading

I just like their style every once in a while.

Back in the day when people printed out the Internet every morning and handed the “House & Garden” section to their wives while they perused the latest news from Cuba, life was fine. Then the BlackBerry Machine came slithering out of Hell’s bowels and ruined everything, the end. This is the premise from which every Richard Cohen column proceeds. But hark, what about the days before the Internet, when Europe was riven by two World Wars and Jews had to flee horrible genocide and American citizens could expect to live out their “golden years” (age 35 onward) in abject poverty? Those times were truly great, because people were self-reliant.

The people of the 1920s and ’30s were tough, hard. They did not expect all that much from life, and they had learned to expect next to nothing from government.

In contrast, we are soft, coddled.

Yes! So soft and coddled with our Social Security and our interstate highway system. Why, back in the 1930s a gentlemen could just die quietly of influenza, penniless, in a ditch somewhere south of Oklahoma City, and nobody thought anything of it!

Also: Richard Cohen read a review of a book that sounded interesting. The book was written by a European Jew named Stefan Zweig who fled the Nazis and ended up “for some reason” in Brazil and killed himself in despair, like a man. What’s the book about? Who knows! But the review was great.

And last, of course, history is like a crazy zoo “beast,” “escaped from its cage.” You probably thought history was a kind of an ongoing thing, kind of like time itself, but nope, it only surfaces periodically, to eat people.

History Roars Back [Washington Post]

Re-doing your dining room chairs

Now, when we moved into our fabulous house, we needed a dining room table. I found one on Craigslist for like 120 bucks, but it is BEEYOOTIFUL. Midcentury danish, lovely curvy table, chairs that just make me happy every time I look at them. Except for the seatcovers.

From Design

Not sure if you can tell but they are a despondant shade of pink salmon, the color of a slightly overcooked fillet. Not terrible, but you know, kinda meh.

I had it in mind to re do them at some point, and that point came up this weekend. I had picked up some el cheapo yet oh-so-scandinavian fabric at Scandinavia-R-Us (Ikea) a few weeks earlier, and I finally got myself a staple gun. A little internet googling found me some directions on how to go about this task, which is dead easy, let me tell you.

Step 1: Remove the four screws from underneath the chair to release the seat part.

From Design

Step 2: Remove the many staples with needlenose type pliers.

From Design

Check it out - foam and batting (I think that's what you call that white stuff)!

From Design

Step 3: Cut out your piece of new fabric and lay your seat on it. Start stapling!

From Design

We run out of pictures at this point because I really like stapling. Start at one end, tack that side down, then pull the opposite end taut and staple that down. Then do your corners. Keep everything pretty taut and fold bits of it as you go around to keep everything looking nice. You can kinda see what I mean in the first picture here of the old seat.

Step 4: Screw the seat back in.

From Design

Ta dah!

From Design

New couch cover

From Design

Mixtes with 3 speed hub

Not too many of these on flicker. Trying to get an idea for how the 3 speed hub chain exits the hub and is attached as it goes up to the handlebars. My Peugeot will be set up similarly to the bike with the rear wire baskets, since I have those! Also cork grips, not plastic.

Mixtes with derailleurs

Zombie dog

Kima freaks me out when she dreams - right now she is laying in the Lazy Boy, her head resting up on the armrest, her eyes rolled back in her head, eyelids not quite closed; her little toes are working and her flanks are jumping and she looks So Stressed Out! She's squeaking a little and breathing hard. It only lasts for two minutes and then she wakes up, stares into space, and then moans and falls back asleep.

It snowed overnight although I think now it's mostly melting, going by the sound of rain/drips on the a/c unit outside the dining room window. Sleet later today, I hope nothing too gross, because Leanne and I are going to see Uber-Opera-Hearthrob (and U of I prof) Nathan Gunn tonight, for free, at Goucher!

Kima fell asleep again and just barked herself awake. Poor befuddled girl.

From Kima