The Breadbox ...

... should be kept clean by scalding and be exposed to sunlight at frequent intervals.
That's the last line in the directions for baking bread in my Purity Cookbook. I was so tickled with it that I forgot to read the rest of the recipe and ended up with a loaf of raisin bread as big as a house.

And, apropos of nothing, listen to the Be Arthurs, a ukulele cover band.

Puppies ...

Take them out twice a day.
Scoop up twice a day.
Feed them twice a day.
And the breath!
Yup, caring for sourdough starters is kinda like having puppies.
They go in the fridge tomorrow (the starters, not the puppies, of which there none, sadly), so the twice-a-days become once-a-weeks or twice-a-months.

Mama Bear ...

There was drama here, last night. It really didn't affect me, other than that I was aware of it and it involved Nina, about whom I care a great deal. Someone was phoning and upsetting her ... repeatedly. And then there was the wind ... blowing, howling, making the awnings snap and other things bump around outside. The wind just kept getting noisier, half-waking me a bunch of times. By the time I went to bed, I was ready to pick up the phone before Nina did, the next time it rang and go all Mama Bear on his ass. She got to him first and managed to get him to stop calling. Lucky him. I could just bite someone when the wind gets like that.

In other news, there is a small doodle in my sketchbook that has Cleo all worked up. She's looking at me all anime-eyed, trying to paw it off the page. I don't know what's different about this particular doodle ... there are hundreds of them, but this one is the one she wants.

Pumpkins, Ponies and a Party ...

The guy on the bottom is mine.
Nina and Den carved a flaming skull and a cat on their pumpkins, but they were all shrivelly by Hallowe'en, so I taped orange construction paper over them, turned the pumpkins around and carved faces in the backs.

We had fifty or sixty kids on Hallowe'en. That's way more than we've had in several years. The nice weather probably accounted for some of them.



















Inez and I got to meet the new babby on Friday when we went out to have lunch with Mary (and Ernie, 'cuz he was home from school, feeling wretched, poor thing)



Robin says he may name him Kyoto, but wasn't sure yet when we were there. He is so soft!



Here he is with Robin and his Mama (Lucky). That's his Pa (Mylo) behind the fence.



Barbara and Annailese were MIA on Saturday 'til they turned up on my doorstep after lunch, so we got a much later start on the day than expected. We went to the market and took Nina's old iMac over to their house and got them hooked up and running and accessing the internet, in spite of a set-up disc that didn't work and two rather lengthy calls to the tech line (first one disconnected about twenty minutes into the call). I don't blame the tech line folx. They're doing their jobs and have a script to follow. It's ... just ... very ... time ... consuming ... and ... frustrating ... if you know you've already checked all the things they're going to have you check. We used up all of the time we had, so I didn't end up hanging out with Annailese so Barbara could get stuff done.

I played Talisman with Drayce and a friend of his at Drayce's on Saturday evening. It rained a bit, then the rain turned to snow (some of which is still here). There was feet-up snow watching with a wee dram of the good stuff later.

The time changed, but noone told Tiger, so getting up was leisurely, but the pre-getting-up-lolling was kinda naggy. Sunday morning brought tea-drinking and geeking, and yacking in the snow on the deck, crunching snow underfoot.

And then, there was a party at Mona's for Auntie Asobel's birthday.

There were games.
There was lunch.
There were dancing girls.



There was visiting.
There were stories
There was a puzzle.



There were faeries.
There were pictures.
There was music.



There was cake and pumpkin squares and sorbet.



There was a present.
There was a homecoming.
There was hugging and kissing and telling of love.
It was a good day.

The Usual ...

Inez was over on Friday. She's a lot of fun. We polished an English version of her résumé, went to visit Barbara for a bit, then did some running around, then Barbara and Annailese came over here and we all hung out in the sun on the back steps 'til Chelsea came to get Inez. Chelsea brought Inez back again on Monday, on her way to work. We went to the University, to drop off résumés, got lost, got sent bouncing from office to office in the Van Vleit Centre and found that another we wanted had moved. It all worked out, though, and we got her to her appointment in Sherwood Park on time. Tuesday's plans with Barbara got changed when Annailese fell onto a duplo castle, poor thing. Inez came in again yesterday. We made maki for lunch, did some running around, visited Barbara, made baked tofu for dinner and watched movies while being mugged for compressed sugar by small ghouls and princesses and then I drove her home. Glinda came in for the afternoon, today. We ran into Drayce on the way for lunch at Mosaics (they've taken my much-loved pb and grilled tofu sandwich off the menu ... sadness! ... but they made one for me today), went to see Mona at Earth's General, to pick up bread and come back here to make cauliflower soup for dinner, then got caught up in looking at her son's website and ended up rushing her off to her class at Bosch before the soup was ready. Oops. Chelsea is dropping Inez off tomorrow moring on her way to work and we're heading out to Mary's (where there's a less-than-a-week-old babby horse!) for a few hours, then pelting home so Chelsea can pick Inez up here and Miles up at Barbara's for their weekend trip. If all goes according to plan, Barbara, Annailese and I will go to the market on Saturday, then I'll hang out with Annailese so Barbara can get her work done. I have bananas in the fridge, calling my name. Mayhap I'll get to building banana bread on Sunday.