Hanna the movie

We watched Hanna this evening and I loved it.

I am a sucker for a good spy film with a revenge angle.

I also loved, loved, loved the professional  so perhaps it is a bit of a fetish?

Thanksgiving

Freyja making the mirepoix for the stuffing

The mirepoix for the stuffing (but we call it dressing , because we don't stuff it inside anything.)

the ubiquitous relish tray

Rolf's mashed potatoes

Blast my camera, it makes photos so blurry! Mark's phone takes better photos!

Mark's new ap, that makes everyone look better than they do in real life

Freyja designed the children's table, and did a darn good job.

Lily gave us this amazing salt and pepper set- I used tiny apples for place cards

Freyja making pumpkin pie, even though "she hates it"

My beloved persimmon Fiesta-ware mug at the end of the day

Our friends brought THREE blueberry pies, and there were only ten of us!

Rolf took a photo with my camera, which makes people look worse than they do  in real life.

Someone should remove all red lipstick from my possession. I look like my father in drag, in this photo. Why on earth am I smiling?  The kitchen witch looks cuter than I do.

In the absence of a loving extended family, I cook.  Does 19 dishes indicate my state of mind?

Two very rowdy girls dismantling my living room

Mark with his mom and a vintage paper turkey, also a gift from Lily

Freyja, after getting busted for being too wild.  "Who me?  I am just an innocent waif with a poodle"

We had a sort of weird Thanksgiving.  I didn't invite anyone (other than the people that are always around for our holidays) because I was thinking of just going out to dinner.
Things have been so intensely shitty for so long around here, and Tuesday I woke up to a fairly brisk leak in the dining-room.
I called Felipe from Eagle Roofing and he came right out and fixed the problem, and informed us that the sunroom needs a new  roof.
Earlier in the month He came the school and repaired a big leak there.  He is certainly the first person I call for any roofing issues.
I had spoken to our friend M a few weeks earlier and told him that he could join us, since prior to getting married he always celebrated holidays with Rolf and me, but since had not.  At the last moment he confirmed that he would indeed come with his children and wife, so then it was set.  I had to pull myself out of the funk and make something happen.
Then Karen called and said she was sick and depressed and didn't feel like a holiday.  I told her I felt the same way and we should get together later when we were feeling better, without expectations of FUN.
Then another close friend called and said he had to do what the mom of his daughter wanted, so he could see the daughter, so the numbers were seriously dwindling.
Perhaps my idea of eating out wasn't so bad after all?  
Wednesday I cooked and cleaned like crazy, while Freyja ran around helping me and tearing things apart, alternately.  Thursday she woke up at 6:00am and Rolf and I took her to "Little T" on Division for a pretzel roll.
We cooked a little and killed time until 5:00pm, when I had to get serious about the food.  For some reason the sweet potatoes were still crunchy at 5:30, so I had to microwave them, which is not something I would normally ever do.
Everything got done, and we sat down to eat at 6:00, with my friend's wife out sick.
There were ten of us, the tiniest group I have had in 22 years.

Scaring, fighting the nation Shooting, shooting their guns and ammunition

seeing photos of police macing students at UC Davis, along with the riot gear in PDX made me think of this old thing.  I love me some Joe Strummer, but who doesn't?
Let me just say that I am not anti-police, in fact I am a pretty straight arrow when it comes to following the rules, but I think we all know some change has got to come, and perhaps most of us don't want to be represented by some stinky, tofu eating slacker, but the bottom line is the country is going to shit and it does my middle aged heart good to see some young folks in the streets.  I for one will move my meager stash of dough into a community owned bank, and I will continue to shop resale and avoid purchasing shoddily made stuff from big box stores.  I will support unions, and fair wages when and how I can, and I will say so early and often. 

the anatomy of an apple pie, and decorating for fall

People keep giving me things

 The past few weeks I have been the recipient of many things great and small, and all very nice.  
I always feel quite awkward when people give me things, as I have pretty much made it a life long policy to neither a lender nor a borrower be, which serves me pretty well.

My mother has been sending me some of her vast collection of china, the Spode Christmas tree china above arrived with three broken bread and butter plates and four broken salad plates, which made me pretty sad, but I am happy that the dinner plates are all in one piece, and I am hoping that UPS will honor their insurance on the package, even though I threw away the really crushed plates before I realized they were insured.
She also sent me a chafing dish, which I was pretty sure I would never use, but then I had this inspiration on Saturday to make Tea poached pears in chocolate sauce, so I could use it. 

Chafing dish in action!

the sample, just to make sure it was fit for company.

cranberry and quince sauce

Another set of china, which is just my style.

creamed spinach, yams & apples, dill potatoes

Quinces from my tree, for the sauce

a boned, stuffed, bacon wrapped chicken for my husband- stuffed with feta, red pepper, raisins, and olives

Candlelight

poached pears, chocolate sauce and lady fingers

getting to play with my stacking dolls

You take the bad with the good

On Tuesday the condenser pump on our furnace died.
Which involved a lot of loud, scary noises.

In spring of 2005 we replaced our 100 year old furnace with a very expensive gas model.

It was a huge, dirty, mess, which I cleaned up after with my six week old in a sling.

Mop, nurse, sweep, nurse, scrub, vacuum, nurse the baby, make the guy raise the duct work up so I can walk underneath... nurse the baby.

The model we took out had originally burned wood or shavings, then was rigged up by some clever person to burn heating oil.

I was very anti-gas, as I am from a family of woodcutting people that shun the feeble and capricious nature of gas heat.

If I had a nickel for every time I heard "gas heat just isn't as warm as wood heat", why I could by a new wood stove!


Sure it comes on as soon as you flip the switch, but it is just not a heavy warm heat, and it goes away as fast as it comes on.

I am pro quilt, pro wood stove,  pro oil and anti gas.

Mark is all about gas heat and he won out in the end.

To me six years may as well be six minutes.

So you can imagine how annoyed I was when I phoned the people that put the gas furnace in.

The fellow on the service line was a total ass.

Hands down the most assholeish of assholes that I have had to deal with in ages.
He seemed to think that six years is a perfectly fine amount of time for a $8000 machine to run.
In the end he said

"Maybe you should go on the internet and order the part YOURSELF, then install it.  

You seem like the type of person that is into saving money." 

Who me? 

No, I HATE saving money.

I LOVE IT when stuff breaks!

In the end I could not abide paying Sunset fuel another penny and instead got on the phone (not the internet, you smug SOB!) and asked my friend Brian to fix it, which he did for $50 and the price of the part.   

Brian is handy and he hates "Ikea culture" as much as I do. 

HA!

You know what makes me furious (aside from the long list I go on and on about here.), makes me crazy angry?

When people tell me that adversity will make me stronger, or that I am being strong, but in that smug way that implies that I was weak or that I have a history of weakness.

Man, that just gets me riled up like nothing else.

For me that sentiment usually come in the form of spiritual or religious people, which may be why I hate religion and spirituality so much, all that self righteousness oozing out all over the place, any time someone has a problem.

One of the best thing I took away from my work with domestic abuse survivors, was the excellent training, the model the organization I was working with used was progressive and I swear I got more out of that training than I did in four years of university and many attempts at therapy.

Anyway, I think the most significant thing for me was the notion of not telling the victim how they should feel, but rather listening, allowing them to have a voice and giving support not advice, which is pretty much counter to any of the religious or spiritual smarty pants that think they have the one true answer.

The computer died last week and required resurrecting by the fellows at fix my dead pc
these fellows recovered all my bookkeeping records when my work computer died suddenly and they fixed a friend's laptop. 
They are nice and close and good people.  
There is something very comforting about their dusty, dirty and unkempt shop and their rumpled staff. 
The head fellow looks a lot like a less nice looking version of  my father, despite our propensity for zaftigness, we Lawlers are a good looking bunch on the whole.

The downside of having the computer die is losing all of my bookmarks.  I had a ton and dig dang if I can remember most of them, yet I miss knowing what they were.

I did manage to pull enough brain cells together to remember the name of this site which I will purchase a skirt from any year now and this graphics site, which I use ALL THE TIME, oh, and this one which I create my fantasy date nights from. 

Otherwise I am pretty SOL for now.  I assume some of the names will come back to me.

I plan to use this graphic for my Thanksgiving food labels.

cute don't you think?

or maybe this one

or even this.
  I haven't made up my mind yet.