Honour Your Inner Magpie

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oscillations
And after a good day, a lousy night.

Whoever's composing the roller-coaster ride of emotions that goes with this kind of stuff, they're damned heavy-handed, is all I can say. And now if you'll excuse me, I am going to find something stationary and hit my head against it until one of us falls asleep or comes to pieces.

If anybody sees my composure lying around out there, please put it into an envelope and mail it back to me. Thanks.

Well, OK, then.
Thanks,

wild_irises. I needed some belaying on this particular rock scramble. Glad you were awake(nable) and could reach it. I owe ya one, and I mean that only in the affectionate not-actually-keeping-score sense, too.

Giggle of the night: "Promiscuous dining! Quelle horreur!"

OK, this time for sure.
I am calling do-overs on last night. And now I shall go get ready for bed.

jenett,

selkie_b, I shall endeavour to be awake when you get here.

and then again...
On the plus side, I did get the most beautiful letter I have ever gotten in my life. From my sister.

Really, really cool.

*makes a note about answering it*

... and in the midst of pain and sorrow, grace:
OK, so I was having a No Good Very Bad Et Cetera, and then a whole bunch of goodness (including but very much not limited to the following) happened:

1. I realized I had friends to ask about a specific thing that I needed help with... and I actually asked, like, specifically and everything.

2. The post-person brought me a box with a really beautiful bracelet in it, with a note saying, "Dear Elise, I made this bracelet to show how you and Mike will always intersect through space and time. I hope you like it. [...]" (Oh, I do, I do! And your timing is better than you could ever possibly know. Such the right thing at this moment, oh. So grateful am I.)

3. I spotted a fleur de sel caramel that

papersky sent me, and it is very good, and also distracting and comforting in the right way.

4. The thing I was on my way to when I spotted that caramel was a box of incense, bath stuff, and some satsuma fragrance oil, figuring I'd try one of the incenses while I take a hot bath and get my joints to stop of the aching so much for a bit. I opened the satsuma scent, and have discovered that it is also very, very comforting in a bright way. (Think "perky ninja hello kitty guardian angel and dispeller of bad vibes.")

5. When I took the incense into the temple of bathitude, I reached up into the cabinet of Elisian Bath Ammo and got out a little Nippon Kodo incense burner. It slid into my hand along with a book of matches from Hyman's Seafood Company and Aaron's Deli, in Charleston, South Carolina, where Mike and I made a point of eating at least once whenever we were down there. It was an Our Thing.

6. And now I have pinned the fleur de sel wrapper on the bulletin board in the temple of bathitude, where I will see it and smile. It's just above a printout Mike gave me of the sonnet "Against Entropy," and I have tucked the corner of it beneath the card for the Hotel Apollon Montparnasse, which is where Mike and I stayed in Paris a number of years ago.

What's that word for "the universe is conspiring benevolently in your favor" again?

Thanks, you guys. All of you. A lot.

ArtLog: progress on BotMo
Katie is hard at work again -- it's been more than twelve hours of pulling, packing, and paperwork so far, and there's more to go -- and we are almost within sight of having all the BotMo boxes packed, padded, sealed, and in a huge pile.

Now if I can get my printer to, and if the Click-n-Ship system is happy with me, I can start paying postage and printing labels.

If anybody has any last-minute address concerns, this would be a good time to e-mail me.

And I've got a few BotMo last-few-days people to respond to -- not to worry, it will work; I just have a breathe a bit here, and I will get e-mail to you guys.

I keep saying to Katie, "Remind me to pay you more." And she allows as how she's not likely to let that slip her mind.

Starting next month, Katie and Jeannie get everything organized between them. This should help a lot, for values of "help a lot" that translate to "avoid the tangles a Lioness-having-an-ADD-festival can make in paperwork." That's the plan, anyhow.

OK. Cup of tea, then more work. Gently.

a comforting song
My tea break turned out to be a music break, and now I am sniffly but smiling. Gotta say that I am so grateful for Chumbawamba's "By and By," right now. (Thanks for turning me on to it, O Helpful Musicfinder Person.)

By and By

"Don't waste the days when I'm dead and I'm gone
Wind up the clocks, ring around, carry on
Don't gather flowers, dry your eyes, call your friends
For all I sang was a start, not an end.
"Catch your breath, feel the life in your bones
Enjoy what's to come, not the things that we've done.
Save all your prayers, take the pain and the hurt
Add your chorus to my verse"

Mike would approve of the rest of it, too. (Which reminds me, we had a couple of conversations about what might have happened if we had met each other as young conservatives. I should write that up sometime.)

Portobellos and Green Onions in Goat Butter: Well, that worked. Yum.
I know, it's late, but I needed to have some food to make sure the bedtime meds didn't bounce, and when I realized that those two big portobello mushrooms needed cooking now, it became the thing to do. Here's what it was:

Take a nice big bunch of green onions or any equivalent, and chop them. Fry 'em up lightly in goat butter, and then put in the portobellos, cut into chunks. (You can do what I did and sautee the white head parts of the green onions and reserve the green parts to go in later and just get sort of wilted, if you like.)

While the portobellos are cooking, get a big blue-and-white bowl (I have a great fondness for blue-and-white dishes) and fill it partway with that lettuce that wants eating, plus a double handful of various salad herbs. Stir the portobellos and don't let them get away from you. Take some of the Cashel blue cheese from the 'fridge and scatter little bits of it over the salad.

When the portobellos are done, spoon the whole thing over the bowl of salad and Cashel blue. The cheese will melt as the greens are wilting into yummy goodness from the heat of the mushroom-onion mixture.

Eat. Make soft hooting noises of delight. Realize that this was a good idea, and resolve to make it again.