I think this was my weekend of taking in strays, or being a good Samaritan, or something like that.
On Friday, I worked at home, and Mark got back from his Door County vacation. We had chips (leftover from new students orientation at library school) and fresh salsa and corn pudding for dinner. I made the pudding with whole wheat breadcrumbs, and sour cream, because I didn’t have heavy cream or half & half, or even evaporated milk, the more usual dairy products. It was quite good, even though the whole wheat breadcrumbs showed up more in the mix than white ones do – I only put a handful of cheese on top, and none in – I thought that balanced the sour cream somehow.
I got email from one of my students that she was passing though Madison on her way to Cleveland from Las Vegas, to do an internship at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and did I want to get together for a drink or something? I asked if she had a place to stay, and she and the friend she was driving with ended up staying with us on Saturday night. John and Megan were here, too. The house guests went out and wandered State St. and ate at The Old Fashioned; the rest of us stayed home and drank beer and watched the Packers lose. We had leftover corn pudding and Spanish rice – spicy, because it had leftover fresh salsa in it – for dinner.
I made a fruit crisp, from the last two peaches from last week, a couple of apples lurking in the back of the fruit drawer in the fridge, and plums and two peaches from the new mixed bag of Door County fruit I brought back from the market on Saturday morning.
Here’s what it looked like Tuesday night:
On Sunday morning I got up and started biking to the bagel place. On my way I decided to go to the hardware store and get a little globe bulb for the front hall light at E. Wash – which is for sale, but negotiations are ongoing so I’m not talking about it yet. Longer bike ride. But the hardware store wasn’t open yet, so I went to Sentry and got the light bulb, and some extra cream cheese and a carton of vanilla yogurt, too, to put on top of the crisp.
We had breakfast and the kids all left – except Megan who’s now officially moved back for the school year. I went down to Chicago with Mark, because an old friend of mine is in the process of moving from Maine to the Bay area, and is staying at Mark’s apartment. It’s kind of close quarters there, and I know her much better than Mark does so it seemed like I should be there for the first night. We went out for tapas, and were uncharacteristically indecisive about what to order.
I worked for two hours on the train down, but on the bus back, I mostly just read and texted and emailed with my realtor. The digital signing program for offer & counter offer docs worked on my iPhone, but the wifi on the bus was iffy. I walked home from the bus, and then went over to E. Wash with step ladder to install the new light bulbs. I was up on the ladder when I got another realtor call, and we spent the evening texting and emailing while I was home and she was in various airports and airplanes stuck on the runway. I managed to fit in at least an hour or two of work on Monday night, and then was at work till 6:00 on Tuesday, and I think my online classes are as ready as they need to be for the start of classes tomorrow. This year, UW starts on a Wednesday, so a 3-day week, followed by the long Labor day weekend, which makes for a 4-day week, and then if that wasn’t bad enough, we end on a Tuesday – so the lat “week” of classes is 2 days. I had all summer food in my lunch today – last of the corn pudding, cherry tomatoes, cantaloupe, and watermelon.
Cute little donut peaches from the market – they’re too good to cook with – eating only!
