Starfish

It's late September. Summer is gone. I'm wearing boots again. My fieldwork in Marrakesh crept up, and then flew by. Peter is talking and running and amazing us everyday with his loving funniness. Is that a word? I don't know. He's definitely that, though. I've already laid this blog to rest, but wanted to leave this final word that we're all well, working hard, and living in the real world.

I guess I've missed my blog birthday

In the meantime,

the big article (on henna work in Morocco) has been completely tied up, revised, new title, new abstract, illustrations rearranged, references checked, and everything received by editor;

the second big article is about half done in terms of word count, and hopefully also in terms of time spent;

my research trip in August has been arranged;

Peter has learned to count to 13, not coincidentally the number of stairs going up to the second floor, and also not generally not in order ("Mun, two, thee, five, eight, eight, ten, rivern, thirteen..."); and

my sabbatical is over.

Sigh.

porch with red door

porch with red door
Originally uploaded by run lily.

In the end, the robin's egg blue door was an abject failure. By "in the end," I mean "after two coats". Tom (also known as "the lovely painter") suggested red, and so we went with a nice madder color. I love it. The doors have six coats, in the end, though the screen door (to which he added a bottom panel and took out the scrolled corner brackets) has just 4 so far.

almost done

almost done
Originally uploaded by run lily.

Still to do (lovely painter, not me, thank heavens): Second coat of main color. Replace lattice under porch. Take brick off roof.
Still to do (me): This year, just wait for plants to grow. I planted old roses in the back bed (on the right) though they're not really visible here. This year, I planted two climbers against the porch, and put the wires up yesterday. The urn has lavender, mints, and sweetpeas, and that's lady's mantle, artemisia, more lavender, some irises, pansies and violas in the front bed. There are also two roses waiting to be planted, and I'm thinking of putting them in front, on the far right (not visible here) next to the neighbor's driveway.

my favorite corner (and it's not the one on the right)

my favorite corner (and it's not the one on the right)
Originally uploaded by run lily.

I just included the view of the dining room to make this photo pretty for Jes. It's actually all about the pantry. This is the pantry I mentioned a few days ago, made last year by our lovely painter-carpenter Tom, when I was 8 months pregnant and we had just moved into the house. The kitchen, for all its vanilla icecream glory, has no room for food. It has room for a bread machine, loaf pans and cookie sheets, pots and frying pans, a bread basket and a lettuce dryer (try it and you'll be converted), cereal boxes, tea and coffee (I'm going around the kitchen from shelf to shelf in my mind -- bear with me), a Moroccan tajine, olive and vegetable oils and salt and a salad dressing cruet, breast pump accessories, dishes for 12 and cutlery for fewer than that (a problem, I know), potatoes, cling wrap, aluminum foil, freezer bags, spices, various gadgets and a rolling pin, a cooking scale, Pyrex measuring cups in 1, 2, and 4 cup sizes, kitchen linens, a thermos, and a Tupperware bin full of round plastic food storage containers (different volumes but all the same diameter). No room for food. The kitchen does have a short hallway leading to the dining room, though, and at the end of this hallway, there was a broom closet the wideth of the hallway and the depth of a vacuum cleaner. We fitted it with shelves salvaged from a bookcase that was removed from another room, and it is now a pantry. Top shelf for alcohol and pickles, then savory canned things (beans, canned tomatoes, fish, pastas and legumes), then baking supplies and sweet things (can you see my pride and joy, vanilla sweetened pureed chestnuts?), then bags of flour, rice, and oatmeal. No pretty shelf liner, no gingham edging, and there's always some flour on the bottom shelf, but it's just the right size.

A thing I love today: vanilla sweetened chestnuts. I may love these even more than the pantry. Gratuitous recipe for chestnut mousse that will get you invited to parties. Don't tell anyone that it takes half an hour to make and is easier than Rice Krispie squares. Whip 500 ml of cream, fold in entire can of sweetened chestnut puree, pipe into Oreo crumb tart bases done in about 45 small muffin liners (1 cup of Oreo crumbs + 1/4 cup of melted butter, mix well). I place the liners on a tray and press the crumb base into them, no muffin tin needed. About a tablespoon per tart will do, pressed into a flat disk with a low side. Let them cool if you can before piping in the mousse, and then let the completed tarts sit somewhere cool for about an hour. I don't have this much room in the fridge, so I've put trays in the freezer and in the back porch (December). The recipe is a variation on something I half-remember from a French cookbook I had 18 years ago; in the original recipe, the mousse was served in champagne cups and garnished with chocolate curls. I do that sometimes, but honestly, I don't have that many (ok, any) champagne glasses. It's Thursday. See what everyone else loves today.

About the new banner (or, why am I up at this hour?)

Parenthetical question first: Because Peter's up. But he's back in bed, and I hope that he will be there for a few more hours. And now a few words just for Robin, who noticed my new banner. The image is low tide this past Saturday at Cumberland Basin off Rockport, about twenty minutes' drive from here. We call this stretch Red Stone Beach (the actual beach is just past this picture); everyone else (hi Alison!) calls it The Steel Bridge (also just past this picture). The entire beach is small, smooth, flattish red stones that heat up so well on a warm day that they must be the inspiration for hot stone massage therapy. It's perfect for dreaming on. Some people fish there. This picture is taken from the main road because the beach access was blocked by a very large mud puddle. What you see, though, is more mud and the newly-greening marsh, and a few rocks further out out. The points of land are New Brunswick on the left and Nova Scotia on the right. Ron and I thought we discovered this place a few years ago, but it turns out that other people around here do know about it, they just don't talk about it everyday the way we did when we first found it.

House projects, writing projects, and a cold

newly painted west side
Originally uploaded by run lily.

That's my excuse, though in reverse order. I did sit down to write something in this dear little space a few days ago, but all I could get down was "I'm sick. Peter is sick." So I got up and made some tea and went for a stroll in the garden. We're both doing better now.

The lovely painters are getting further and further on with the house. It's going slowly but well, and everyone has noticed more traffic on the street as our neighbors come by to see the progress. Our backyard neighbors called over the other night to say how much they loved the colors, and a few couples from down the street have stopped me on the sidewalk with compliments. Tom (who made my pantry closet last winter and created space in this little kitchen for someone who cooks) jokingly calls my sand-and-sea color scheme "orange with yellow trim," but I can tell that he's very proud of it so far.

Today's big news, aside from getting a first coat on the west side of the house, was that final proofs of an article I wrote a few months ago arrived. They look good. The article (tourism and gender in Morocco, with an emphasis on tourist sector henna artisans) will appear in volume of a scholarly encyclopedia that's due out in July. My writing projects for the next two months: revise second article (social organization of henna workers, due mid-June), write film review (ageing and work), and finish the henna ethnography article. Plus all the other stuff that will need to be done so that I can come back at the end of August and teach the following week. Piece of cake!

Things are moving along here. Peter and I went to a speech-development program for little ones his age this morning. It wasn't really a success. The program involved sitting in a circle and doing action rhymes for an hour. The other kids did that, anyway. I spent a lot of time bringing him back from the hall, and just when he seemed to be settled and enjoying a quiet story, the animator said it was time for another jumping-around song. I thought that would be a good time to go.

Our lovely painter is painting outside, and we hope to have the back of the house done (!!) by the end of the weekend. It's going slowly. There were 1" holes in the clapboard where insulation was blown in 20 years ago. There were some missing shakes, some cracked clapboard, some rotted trim, and some gaps that a small cat could crawl through. But Tom is out priming right now, and there will be a big change in the next day. We're off to St Martins for a very short break tomorrow, and then our trusty electrician will be in on Monday to install some lighting over the kitchen sink, and hopefully advise on a few other projects. A light in the kitchen hall would be nice, but there are no nearby outlets to run a wire from, and the walls (every one of them) are solid plaster. What to do, what to do, what to do. In the meantime, I've moved these ferns from the intensive care unit (the windowsill behind the kitchen sink) to a new home in the upstairs hall. The intensive care bed is now occupied by my poor burro's tail, which got either too much sun or too much cold a few weeks ago in the front porch.

No headline needed!

A new article, a new (to us) picture, and an old house

I've been working at the kitchen table today on the ethnography article (henna practices in Morocco) that I have been wanting to do for the past two months, and which had been put off in favor of the economic anth article (done, but revisions pending) and the first book review. What a calm, beautiful place to work. I always seem to pick one place to work on each project, and this place will be where I pound out my first draft this week.

Can you see a new painting on the wall opposite the table? That was in the bottom of a box lot (with some kitchen linens too, and maybe the toy trunk?) that Ron got at an auction last summer. He wouldn't have paid more than $12 for the box, and this was a bonus hidden away inside. I finally got a frame for it ($14) and now it's up.

And this is what's going on outside.