I've got my life back
I love my friends and I love summer, but I breathe a sigh of relief when the last person leaves in September. Last night I got to go straight home, take care of details in my house and have an evening of domestic bliss with my dogs. They liked it, I liked it, and it was what normal (for me) life is like. Wednesday night I'll cook dinner with Ken, but last night and tonight are for me.

It's hot here, too hot for September according to most people. I'd like to have cooler weather, temps in the 60's so I could stack firewood without getting hot & sweaty. I do not like to sweat, it's one of my concessions to girly-girlness. I know I talk endlessly about stacking firewood but it's an obsession here in the North Country for those of us who burn wood, especially this time of year. I like handling my wood, I like seeing the progress when the size of the wood pile diminishes and the stack of wood grows. I like counting the number of wheelbarrow loads it takes to move wood from one place to another. It's all very satisfying, like putting money in the bank, only it's money that can only be spent in one place.

I'm trading an old wood stove that I have for some grapes. I hope the stove is still good, it's been lying on its side next to my driveway for many years now. It's rusty but since it's iron it should be all right. My friend Julie has an oil furnace and wants to put a wood stove in her kitchen. I mentioned that I had one I'd love to have removed from my property. Bingo, a deal was struck. She has some delicious grapes on her arbor that the mother of the previous owner brought from France (the Coneheads, in unison "We're from France"). So it looks as if I'll be making grape jelly this week. Haven't made jelly in a few years, will feel good to get back to that I think. It's fun to make, watch the natural jelling of fruit. I'll use a few apples from my trees for the pectin to help it gel. Some people use commercial pectin, but the flavor is much richer if you don't. Takes a lot longer, but tastes better. And that's my cooking tip for today.

Speaking of cooking, I wrote my first review for Library Journal recently and got an email from the editor saying she was doing the final editing. The book is The storm gourmet and is really a hoot. It's supposed to be recipes you can use when you've been caught in a storm and you're without power, living off of the contents of your pantry. One task assigned in the book is to pick up the grapefruits and avocados that fell from the trees during the storm. Another funny thing about the book is that a key ingredient in some of the recipes is rose water. Which we all keep in our pantries, right? But I gave the book a half-decent review, because some of the recipes were ok, and it's probably my nature to say something nice ("If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all," thank you Mother). I did mention that many of the recipes would be of limited use to those of us in the REST of the world.

I have tons of green tomatoes on my plants. I only grew cherry tomatoes this year, I've given up on regular tomatoes. The dogs have discovered the plants and bury their heads in the plants, chomp chomp chomp. I've always had dogs who love tomatoes fresh off the vine. I yell to them "Stop it! Those are MINE!" and they'll stop, but as soon as I turn my head Tess is back in the bush. On Sunday Jenica said "I hate to tell you this but there's a big tomato branch in the middle of your yard." In the MIDDLE of my yard? That's not where the plants are.

Steve finished my deck on Saturday. This is a monumental event. It's beautiful and huge. No bigger than the previous one, but does not have all the crap on it that the other one did. Looks wonderful and hopefully my retroactive raise money will be enough to pay off the rest of what I owe him for it. I think the total cost will be about $1100-1200. More than I'd intended. Of course, there's $75 in there for repairs to his saw, which I ran over with my car.

Sunday Jenica and I had a really nice dinner at Linda's with Bill, Ken, Fred and Bill's "ward," a 21-year old from his neighborhood who has 4 children and does work for Bill (we call him "the boy from the 'hood"). As usual, it was a good meal and lots of fun. The only problem was that it was an hour later than usual and Linda, Erdvilas and I were invited to a big meal next door at Roger Douglas', which was supposed to start at 4. Less than 2 hours after we finished our meal at Linda's. It was painful. We didn't go to Roger's until 4:30, but Linda and I were struggling. Erdvilas, apparently can eat any amount of anything at any time. There was wild boar sausage, deep fried turkey injected with Cajun seasoning and deep fried roast beef from the cow that Roger bought, which was injected with some kind of seasoning, and lots of other stuff. Dessert was two kinds of apple pie and cheesecake. I drank a lot of beer but didn't get drunk for some reason. It was actually a really nice party with people I don't usually socialize with. Roger's sister Laura and her husband were there, as were some people from up the lake (who aren't generally very sociable to me). Roger and Laura are the children of the lake's villain, who pillages and plunders the lakefront with plans for development, cottage rentals and his campsites. Roger, however, has a completely different attitude about the future of the lake and hates what his father is doing. I adore Roger, think he's the cutest thing in the world. He's my plow man and neighbor. He gets a kick out of me and takes very good care of me as well. He's Linda's caretaker.

At this party there were 3 pugs, 1 golden retriever, my dog Tess, 1 German shorthaired pointer, 1 shit zhu and 6 children. We closed the gates on the deck so the dogs wouldn't run away. Not everyone there was crazy about dogs but they were very tolerant. I got to talk with Roger and another person about hummingbirds and when you should stop feeding them (never: they'll leave on their own--it's a myth that, if you don't stop feeding them they won't leave), the white fawn I've seen twice (it's doomed, according to Roger, but he won't shoot it because it's bad luck), the number of wild turkeys in the neighborhood ("There must be 250 turkeys within a 2 mile radius"--an exaggeration, to be sure, but there are TONS of them around), and the mallards that someone has tamed enough to eat bread out of your hand (they waddled all the way up the hill to where Jerry was working on his camp, to quack at him to feed them. Jerry and Roger both said the ducks will migrate in spite of being tamed. I still have my doubts about that.). I had a really nice time but felt totally sick to my stomach from the food.

Our new director starts soon. We all agree that the Old Director (OD) is taking the approach that if you're of no use to her you're ripe for abuse by her. I spent the day with her at a systemwide meeting and she was charming and presented a wealth of information. There are some things she knows a great deal about (including emotional torture). New director arrives in the area next week but doesn't officially start until 10/2. Boy oh boy that day can't arrive soon enough!