Thursday, December 16, 2010

Odds &

I can barely bring myself to sit down with my computer and do a blog entry. Something has shifted, internally, or maybe it's just a by-product of the ample darkness these days in our hemisphere, our northerly city perched up here close to the edge of the continent, the northerly corner of the country. I dunno. All I can say is that I've been getting sufficient brief blips of e'mail, blogs and facebook on my newest appendage, my iPhone.

Winding down the year at work. It's been an archaeological dig all week, in the sheds, the studio and the dungeon aka the basement. I assembled a new shop vac today and went berserk (I've never actually written that word before) sucking up every last bit of broken glass and spilled packing peanuts: the rubble & scraps of a year of working to get orders completed and shipped out with nary a second to do that cleaning thing. We lugged box after box of excess glass pieces to the car for repeated trips to Goodwill, broke-down teetering stacks of boxes and bundled them for recycling, arranged & rearranged every last piece of blank stock, fresh for a new year. All is agleam. It feels good to work. I like to work -- I like the industry of it. This end-of-the-year scrubbing-down is mucky & grubby, but we'll ratchet the production back up to a noisy bustle once the holiday dust settles. Another year.

Big doings here on Sunday: P. and I are hosting a family party, to the tune of 40+ people. I'm making three soups: meatball with kale, corn chowder and minestrone. I'm going to attempt six baguettes...I need a bigger oven!

7 comments:

  1. Your description of tidying took me back to my school days. Every end of term was just like that; a nightmare.

    Re Your cooking. We have two ovens; one bottled gas, the other wood fired. How anyone can feed more that 4 people without 2 ovens I don't know. 40? I think you need even more!

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  2. Tis the season. I like work, too, real work and not the corporate/higher education/industrial complex kind. Too many years as a university bureaucrat I'm afraid. The work you were doing to close out the end and gear up for the next - that sounds very satisfying.

    So do the soups -- my wife has been seeking the perfect corn chowder recipe, as it happens. So if you want to share yours.....

    tonight the wind is blowing hard and the rain is coming down...and I can't sleep. Sheesh. Winter.

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  3. Cro, of course you are right. I long for the giant convection oven from my bakery days and the six-burner gas range, which was an ox of an appliance. Although I will say that I could cater to 40 people with only a camping stove if I had to. I guess I love the challenge of it as much as anything!

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  4. Tara, I'm trying a new corn chowder, and I'll let you know.

    And yes, real work. Is good.

    (Got your Christmas card, which made me really laugh. Out. Loud.)

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  5. The one thing I can't make myself do suddenly is clean. With this snowfall and no 'mud room' at the entrance of the House, cleaning is essential. But I can't.

    I just want to read, write and watch.

    Love, C.

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  6. Foxessa, while I was digging out at work, I had hired help at my own house, cleaning it down to the bones. What pleasure it is to not have to exhaust myself cleaning at home prior to this party!

    I just want to read, write and cook. Ha!

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  7. and now you get to read, write and cook!

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