Dept. of Catching Up
Saturday, 9 May 2026 01:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaffy_rSimply Sisyphean
The whole "catching up" thing. I mean. I keep trying to stay up to date with y'all, and then I fall down on the job - and then I get back up on whatever bicycle or horse I need to scramble up on ... wash, riinse, repeat. Heh.
Seriously though, I blame the ease I have typing in Discord conversations. It's truly addictive and reminds me so much of how fully I got pulled into rec.arts.sf.fandom on Usenet of blessed memory all those years ago. But one can't have a menu of solely one dish, no matter how tasty, especially if sticking to one thing means you miss equally delightful dishes that are a little different. Dreamwidth is far more longform, and I am, if nothing else, pretty longform myself.
What have I done since I last posted? Spent time in the kitchen creating things both sweet and savory. Last Saturday, I went to Evanston's farm market, hoping I'd find some rhubarb, and the very first vendor I checked did indeed have rhubarb. I made a pie that almost was disaster because both I and the recipe I used forgot how much liquid rhubarb releases as it cooks. I figured out a custard that I introduced to the pie via the one piece I cut out to discover the mistake - and cooking the custard into the pie post-baking was an interesting exercise - but it worked.
I don't think I'll find anymore rhubarb, since it does have a short growing season around here, and I've already made a pumpkin pie (the rescued rhubarb tart went down very well with Bob and with me), but if I do find some at the next farmer's market, I'll start with a rhubarb custard and take it from there.
Wow. Much cooking. So culinary. Wow.
I've been watching and generally enjoying the weather in my neck of the city, even though it's not been typical May weather. Then again, these days I don't expect weather to be typical. Two days ago, it was in the mid 40Fs and today it's in the low 70Fs. The one near constant is the wind, which has occasionally been strong enough to down tree branches, occasionally large branches. No tornadoes yet, which I hope remains the case. We're just at a spot where cold and warm fronts compete for dominance, thanks to the lake, I'm fairly sure.
It's less than a month until the kids begin their eastward journey from Seattle to Chicago (or, to be more precise, Glenview; Andy and Emily have almost inadvertently become part of the "young couples move themselves and their young children out of the big city into the 'burbs for good schools yada-yada" generation. I used to roll my eyes at people who'd speak up at various municipal/school boards I'd cover where people would stand up and say that that was who they were, because I heard it so often during NIMBY discussions. But I digress.) We're looking forward to it, and I'm guessing that we'll probably take charge of the kids for at least a couple of days to give their parents a chance to unpack and possibly begin decompressing from the journey.
I still wonder how they're going to handle bringing Tommy along. He's their 17-year-old cat with mild dementia and pronounced fecal incontinence. Andy loves the cat and doesn't want to leave him behind, even with friends who love cats and who would be willing to care for him until the end, which is probably not that far off. It's hard to convince him that loving Tommy might actually mean leaving him behind. I don't envy him making the decision; I know what it is to love a cat with significant health problems.
I've got a bubble in my head which is slowly expanding, a bubble that wants me to write more on one of my original stories. I think the bubble is going to have to wait until I actually complete an outline for what's left of the story. Waiting until one is almost 52,000 words in before deciding how the story should actually end is beyond ridiculous, but there we are and there we go.
But I don't like making outlines, she whines ....
Ah well. Perhaps I'll actually do it this time.
The whole "catching up" thing. I mean. I keep trying to stay up to date with y'all, and then I fall down on the job - and then I get back up on whatever bicycle or horse I need to scramble up on ... wash, riinse, repeat. Heh.
Seriously though, I blame the ease I have typing in Discord conversations. It's truly addictive and reminds me so much of how fully I got pulled into rec.arts.sf.fandom on Usenet of blessed memory all those years ago. But one can't have a menu of solely one dish, no matter how tasty, especially if sticking to one thing means you miss equally delightful dishes that are a little different. Dreamwidth is far more longform, and I am, if nothing else, pretty longform myself.
What have I done since I last posted? Spent time in the kitchen creating things both sweet and savory. Last Saturday, I went to Evanston's farm market, hoping I'd find some rhubarb, and the very first vendor I checked did indeed have rhubarb. I made a pie that almost was disaster because both I and the recipe I used forgot how much liquid rhubarb releases as it cooks. I figured out a custard that I introduced to the pie via the one piece I cut out to discover the mistake - and cooking the custard into the pie post-baking was an interesting exercise - but it worked.
I don't think I'll find anymore rhubarb, since it does have a short growing season around here, and I've already made a pumpkin pie (the rescued rhubarb tart went down very well with Bob and with me), but if I do find some at the next farmer's market, I'll start with a rhubarb custard and take it from there.
Wow. Much cooking. So culinary. Wow.
I've been watching and generally enjoying the weather in my neck of the city, even though it's not been typical May weather. Then again, these days I don't expect weather to be typical. Two days ago, it was in the mid 40Fs and today it's in the low 70Fs. The one near constant is the wind, which has occasionally been strong enough to down tree branches, occasionally large branches. No tornadoes yet, which I hope remains the case. We're just at a spot where cold and warm fronts compete for dominance, thanks to the lake, I'm fairly sure.
It's less than a month until the kids begin their eastward journey from Seattle to Chicago (or, to be more precise, Glenview; Andy and Emily have almost inadvertently become part of the "young couples move themselves and their young children out of the big city into the 'burbs for good schools yada-yada" generation. I used to roll my eyes at people who'd speak up at various municipal/school boards I'd cover where people would stand up and say that that was who they were, because I heard it so often during NIMBY discussions. But I digress.) We're looking forward to it, and I'm guessing that we'll probably take charge of the kids for at least a couple of days to give their parents a chance to unpack and possibly begin decompressing from the journey.
I still wonder how they're going to handle bringing Tommy along. He's their 17-year-old cat with mild dementia and pronounced fecal incontinence. Andy loves the cat and doesn't want to leave him behind, even with friends who love cats and who would be willing to care for him until the end, which is probably not that far off. It's hard to convince him that loving Tommy might actually mean leaving him behind. I don't envy him making the decision; I know what it is to love a cat with significant health problems.
I've got a bubble in my head which is slowly expanding, a bubble that wants me to write more on one of my original stories. I think the bubble is going to have to wait until I actually complete an outline for what's left of the story. Waiting until one is almost 52,000 words in before deciding how the story should actually end is beyond ridiculous, but there we are and there we go.
But I don't like making outlines, she whines ....
Ah well. Perhaps I'll actually do it this time.
