Stormy Weather

It’s been kind of a long strange week. With alternate schedules.

Monday I had to be at the library by 8:00 to help unload a 200+ box book donation. I kind of frittered around getting out of the house trying to decide if I should walk or bike and what to wear and ran out of time and took the bus. Which turned out to be OK, at least in terms of exercise, because the Friends admin and I ended up pushing the carts and stacking the boxes in the library for most of the 200+ boxes in the donation. The donor had hired a trucking company and the guys from that company loaded the carts for us, then they came in and helped unload the last two carts. Pretty much done before custodial even came in. Once we got in a rhythm of us taking empty carts up to the loading dock and exchanging for full and going down and unloading I was hoping the trucking guys would say, “those old ladies are fast”. I guess we were fast but not fast enough for that praise.

After the move job I decided I deserved a coffee. Again I debated, order online in a disposable or walk there. I had my cup with me so opted to walk there, but it was thundering when I left the library. And by the time my small latte was made it was raining. I had my rain coat but no umbrella, so I tried to stay under the storefronts overhangs as much as I could and got to the library with only my jeans pretty wet. And my coffee was still hot.

Susan and I had plans to go to the gym Monday afternoon, since we’d missed our regular Sunday. It was still kind of raining plus I was kind of tired when I left the library, so I took the free campus bus, that’s still a bit of a walk to get home. Then drove to Susan’s since the weather was not conducive for biking. When I pulled in at her place I saw that she’d texted and had also had a vigorous morning digging in he garden so we decided to walk and get a cup of coffee instead of the gym. Of course, since it was after 3:00, and a Monday, pretty much everything was closed. We ended up at bar and Susan had an NA beer and a bowl of soup, and I had an NA spritzer, made with NA Prosecco that came in a pretty can and an Aperol-like cordial (Maybe this one? tho Lyre makes one, too), a different brand from the NA cordials I’d tried in Denver for our super fancy dinner during my Dryuary. I wonder if making a kir or Boulevardier with NA cordial would reduce the headache factor.

It rained on us a bit but not too bad. For dinner I hauled all the leftovers out of the fridge, and good thing too, because in Tuesday’s storms the power went out, so it was handy that the fridge was largely empty. But I’ll get to that in a minute.

I had Jasper Tuesday, an extra day, because Emma parents had gone to Washington Island to relax. Ironically they had to cut their trip short because storms hit pretty hard up there, too. But I’ll get to that in a minute.

I took Jasper to gymnastics class on Tuesday morning and that was fun, but after, another mom was holding the door open for her kid, and he ran out into the parking lot. From which he had to be retrieved and strapped into his car seat yelling and wriggling. Then the whole way home he cried for Aapo (apple) that along with bunnies is his current favorite snack, but while I’ll let him eat bagel in the car seat, apple seems like too much of a choking hazard, so I kept telling him, soon, soon, almost home. When we got home, we played indoors, and he ate lunch, and took a long nap, like 11:45 to almost 1:15, 1:20 or so. And I thought we’d walk to the slide, but he seemed to want a quieter afternoon, first wanted to play in his crib and then we watched Go Dog Go, and had bunnay and aapo for snack.

Tuesday after Jasper went home I walked to the corner store and bought a head of cabbage, and we had a kids dinner, coleslaw and hot dogs and macaroni & cheese, the stovetop kind. I thawed out a small conatainer of baked beans, too. We ate in the dining room, leaving Jasper’s chair hooked to kitchen counter because I thought he’d be back Wednesday, and I also was thinking we’d have good leftovers for Jasper’s lunch. But while we were watching the news at about 10:15 the power went out. We heard the transformer blow up or get hit by lightning or whatever happens to them when they cut out suddenly. Mark watched a little more TV on his iPad and I went and got a candle and got in bed and tried to read a printed book to save my phone. But I only made it about a page.

Wednesday morning I got up pretty early and went down the basement to check if it was wet, and mercifully it was not, because I had no dryer (for sopping towels) or shop vac to clean up with. Around 6:30 I texted Emma and offered to come take care of Jasper at their place because no power here. And I got a text that schools were closed so I told Pia she didn’t have to get up.

I boiled water on the stove that I could light with a match, and made myself a black pour over coffee – no milk because we were religiously trying not to open any fridge or freezer doors. I had a bit of magical thinking of how much I could do on my way over to Al, Emma, and Jasper’s, like I thought I could go to the bagel store AND stop for coffee, which resulted in me taking a very weird route, and getting there late. But I did see a neighbor who confirmed they were also without power. And good thing I skipped stopping for coffee because their power was off, too. I did the errands with Jasper instead. He had some breakfast and then off we went, bagel store, coffee for me, and then library with the magnet wall. Home and lunch and no nap. He did take two short snoozes in the car. We were stuck in traffic for a pretty long time on the way to bagels so sleep was actually a good idea, then he nodded off again on the way home from the library. We read and he had a bottle and I gave him 20 minutes hoping he’d fall asleep but no luck. When I went to retrieve him, he’d thrown everything out of the crib, 4-5 pacifiers, a couple of stuffed animals, two loveys, a cloth diaper – you get the idea. We went out for a couple cruises around the neighborhood, first with his little plastic car that’s noisy as hell, then with his bike with the parental steering handle. He seemed to like the bike better – I did, anyways – and we did two loops on it. Then back in and played in the basement and watched Go Dog Go on my phone and then Emma was home. 

When I got home I was the only one there, so I hung up the couple of towels I’d sopped up the basement with, in the AM, in the dark, and read for a bit, since it was still nice and light in the kitchen at 5:30. Pia and Annabelle had gone to the gym and then to one of the UW campus libraries that was open. The power didn’t come back at Annabelle’s until sometime Friday. The kids said they’d figure out their own food, and Mark and I walked over to Monroe Street for pizza, where the staff kindly directed us to the table that had outlets underneath where we could charge our phones. And also where we got this text from the power company:

Thursday I was over scheduled. Food pantry (oh and an 8:00 phone call before the food pantry) and then two book donation pick ups for the library, that was going to require driving and finding places to park and shleping boxes. I sneaked out of the pantry on the early side and got my car into one of the ramps downtown, and fortified myself with coffee and a scone before heading into the library to get the boxes and a hand truck onto the loading dock where I could pick them up with my car. Off to the first pickup which was a collection of boxes that had been in someone’s attic for thirty years, and were in pretty awful shape. The volunteer I was working with has a pick up truck so neither of us put any of those boxes inside our cars. We had time to get that stuff unloaded and re-park our cars and into the library and even start sorting out the salvageable items bef0re the next job, that was picking up at someone’s office on campus. A lot cooler and cleaner.

And home with enough time to shower and eat a bit – I think I had baked beans on toast – and we went to Pia’s honors convocation at the high school. I only took pictures of her back, up on stage, but Mark took a few of her and Annabelle outside the school after the ceremony.

All of which brings us to the actual Memorial Day holiday weekend, which was also stormy. Friday morning it was raining and Mark and I did a slightly shorter walk, about 4 miles, and had coffee. The coffee place was packed, I’m sure there were still plenty people without power at home. I didn’t go anywhere else the rest of the day, instead I got reacquainted with the cats and the couch. And sopped up the basement. And made sesame noodles and roasted asparagus for dinner.

Saturday was gorgeous. We biked to the Farmers Market, and the rest of the day’s activities for me were making a long rise focaccia so we could make sandwiches with it when Megan and Ethan and Rowan visited Sunday, and also making some hummus and a smash cake for Rowan, and some cupcakes for the rest of us. And driving Pia to the movies and picking her up again. They saw IF and said it was very sweet. Rowan will be one in just over a week and is having a catered birthday party that were are not going to, since it’s out in Denver on a Saturday, and I have a food event I’m helping with the next day. Hence the preview smash cake here. He was better at smashing than eating at first, but pretty quickly got the hang of it.

I also worked a bunch on rhubarb scones, and here’s the best recipe so far – take 3. The pictures aren’t very good because it was so dark & rainy Sunday.

On Monday George helped me defrost the freezer, my Memorial Day tradition. It seemed to thaw really quickly even though it wasn’t a very hot day, maybe because of the 24 hours with no power earlier in the week. Everything in there seemed OK except for a package of filo dough, that seemed puffed up like it had frozen and thawed. I stuck it in the fridge and guess I’ll do something with it soon, but low stakes – didn’t want to get it out right before a party where I was planning spanakopita or something, only to discover it was a solid block with un-separateable-leaves.  

For our memorial Day “cookout” I made brats indoors in the oven, and there was still coleslaw from Tuesday, and I made this Japanese potato salad that was in Food & Wine.

Amd since it’s rhubarb season, in addition to my rhubarb scone experiments, I tried these King Arthur rhubarb bars. They’re very good, like a blondie with rhubarb jam swirled in. Tuesday morning I stuck them in the fridge because seemed like the rhubarb jam topping would get too gooey at room temperature.

So that’s our Memorial Day: still recovering from power outages, vacations cut short, lots of rhubarb, small parties like short visits from grandkids, and still maintaining some adherence to holiday traditions.

OK, and now it’s Tuesday so I’m off to meet my new dentist who is already someone new since I switched after my awful appointment in October.