muted

Austin has pointed out that I shouldn't talk about the wedding details in case some of my readers aren't invited to the wedding. That seems to assume a lot about my readership (as in, it's more than just my mother, and you know she's totally invited), but he's probably right. Instead I'll overshare when it's all over and just say that the invites have gone out, the rvsps are flooding in (boy is THAT aspect of wedding planning gratifying!) and we bought our wedding rings today. So I guess we really HAVE to get married now.

Just kidding. I'm so excited about getting married. I'm excited about the party, I'm excited about our families and friends coming to visit, I'm excited about the dress and the paper flowers and the place cards and the corn muffins and the playlists and the pizza party the night before. But mostly I'm excited about BEING MARRIED! It seems like the whole time we've been together, I've known this is where we were heading, and it's finally here, and it partially feels like we've been married for years, and it partially feels like the big step that it legitimately is. I'm going to share his name. He's going to be my guardian. It's big. And it's exciting. And it's lovely.

How's that for non-wedding wedding talk? I know, weddingweddingwedding, right? I'm trying not to be that girl. What else is going on? Charlie Murphy is still peeing on things in our home. Like the dog beds, if we leave them on the floor unoccupied. Or a stack of papers in the office that needed to be filed. Or my brown boots (dammit). Austin's done plenty of research into possible causes. The vet suggested that we let him go outside, which is of course never going to happen. Instead we started letting him go into the basement unsupervised, which he'd been vocally begging to do since we bought the house. We've also tried giving him ample doses of catnip, with the hopes that he'd chill out. Oh, he chills out alright, laid out spread eagle on the kitchen counter in a patch of sun, drooling.
And then he pees on the green blanket when it falls off the bed. The apparent conclusion is that we have too many pets and he's being territorial, although damned if I know why this suddenly came on when we've been a 6 pet household for over two years. And we're not about to start getting rid of the others just because Charlie Murphy thinks he needs to assert himself. In the meantime, I have to figure out how to get cat urine out of leather. Which is awesome.

The troubling thing is that he doesn't act like he's having a hard time at all. He gets along fine with the other pets, except for when he pushes Mackenzie's buttons, which can be done pretty much by breathing. He and Mischa wrestle and chase each other, and he's very patient with her. He'll rub his head under Bridgey's chin and it's too sweet. On the weekends or sometimes in the evenings he comes and snuggles us on the couch, and it's the most gratifying feeling in the world. I don't want him to be mad at us, or at war (inside his head) with the rest of the pets or our home. Because that's what it feels like: piss warfare.

In other news, Casey and I went to NYC for a long weekend to visit Jenny. It was gorgeous and delicious and we shopped and ate until our faces fell off (nearly). I loved just walking around with my sisters, that immediate natural flow of conversation and interaction that kicks in whenever it's the three of us. Some things I observed: My sisters still think of me as being a terrible traveler. That is fair, because I truly was, for years. I overpacked, I lost shit, I got lost, I procrastinated, I got flustered. I'd like to thank Austin (and also just traveling a whole, whole lot in my mid 20s) for having made me a better traveler. I still get nervous during takeoff and landing. I also still have to compulsively repack every time I take something out of my suitcase. But I've managed to plan ahead for this quirk and try not let it affect anyone else that I might be traveling with. Still, my sisters wanted to make sure I woke up early enough every day to be ready to leave the house at the same time as they were, and I ended up just waiting on them a lot and feeling smug. I also observed that my sisters' patience and stamina for shopping has gone inversely up in relation to my own decline. They used to refuse to shop with me because I'd take so long, liked to be thorough and look at everything. They were always On A Mission. This trip to New York, I ran out of steam in the first 10 minutes of each new store we visited, and wound up sitting on the floor by the front door of H&M, totally over throwing elbows in the name of cheap clothes. I bought six shirts, only because I didn't have to try them on (I refused to enter that hellhole of a dressing room) and figured that if they didn't fit I'd give them to someone they would. The girls completely racked up, happily for them.

I'm running out of steam and thoughts tonight. Remember when Myspace would play a song when someone visited your page? Mine was Fake Palindromes by Andrew Bird for forever. If my life were a song tonight, it would be this: Young Folks by Peter Bjorn and John. It's the new dancing-in-pajamas song in the Gill-Gray kitchen. Mom, you'll like it! Be ready to dance to it with me and my groom in 6 short weeks and two even shorter days...

one sneak, then

Okay, so you like the wedding talk? Thanks for letting me know. I'll let Austin edit me if I start putting too much out there.

For now, here's a sneak into one of the big decisions at which we've recently arrived. Not sure if you know, but the state of Tennessee does not recognize ministers who were ordained online to officiate a marriage. In 1997, they ratified the rules on this matter to state that any minister/priest/preacher must have a congregation (specifically, "care of souls") in order to qualify. Sure, we could use an elected official instead (that's what both my sisters did, and that worked out great), and we even met with our city councilman about performing the ceremony, but it never really sat right with me to be standing up there in front of a near-stranger (I could say "sat right with us" but that would probably not be accurate. It should come as no surprise that I'm the one overthinking this matter).

So we weighed our options. Near stranger = legal marriage, not very comfortable. Get a friend to perform the ceremony = cozy ceremony, not legally married. Yikes. The part about being legally married *does* matter. It does. I'm sure every one of us knows couples who aren't technically married but might as well be (or maybe who don't know any different!) but, if the whole point is for us to be lawfully wed by the end of all this planning and excitement, well, there it is. Luckily, I'm a Jansen, and when presented with an A/B equation like this one, I always pick C. I come up with a workaround. Workaround we have.

So we're going to have someone close to us perform the ceremony, have a great big party surrounded by all our loved ones, spend the next day (Sunday) with all our visiting guests, and then, on Monday morning, before we leave for our honeymoon, we're going to head to the courthouse and get hitched. Just the two of us. Say the words and sign the papers. By the power vested in the county clerk by the State of Tennessee.

Sure, it's nontraditional. As I've mentioned before, that's not really something we're going to worry about. My only worry originally was that maybe it would make our public ceremony, the one in front of all the folks, seem less significant. But that's just not possible. That will be a giant moment, the one we've been leading up to for more than six years by then. I'll be in the dress, he'll be in the suit, our moms will be crying on the front row. And then Monday morning will be just for us. A private, formal ceremony to bring closure and gravity, to solemnize the hoopla surrounding the wedding.

And because I'm sure you're wondering, that person close to us who will perform the family ceremony is my Uncle Bill. He's my mom's oldest brother, a true gentleman and also a bona fide pirate. He has offered to wear an eye patch for the wedding; I told him we'd see...

Thus we have arrived at a solution that feels absolutely right.

why do I always do this?

Gah! I wait so long between posts and then there is too much to say. Let's do the bullet point version of an update:

• Wedding date: moved. Forward one week due to scheduling difficulties with the Bicentennial Mall. So now we're looking at May 22, which I'm told is going to guarantee us a long and happy marriage. So there.
  
• Seattle: gorgeous. We couldn't have had better weather or a more beautiful rental house. With a Viking range and subzero fridge, believe it. We bought stunning produce at Pike Place, cooked up a storm, played lots of cards, took over the jukebox at a bar in the tiny town of Manchester, and had an amazing meal of tapas at Black Bottle in Belltown. I got to catch the Jim Henson exhibit AND the Hatch exhibit at EMP; both were fantastic and the Hatch show made me miss my old friend Huey. Oh, and we spent a lot of time on ferry boats. I never thought I'd be on a boat.
  
• Alaska: awesome. I'm not really sure if I could live there, what with all their issues with day and night and the proper scheduling of each, but the scenery couldn't have been more beautiful. We saw a small black bear and were woken up by a 5.4 strength earthquake. The Great Wedding Adventure came off without a hitch and it was an absolute honor to be involved and to finally get to meet Agnes's big crazy family, especially Peter, who I feel like I've known for years.
  
• I will say this: air travel = sucks. I swear. It's never going to be any better. We had the most absurd amount of drama getting on a direct flight from Seattle into Anchorage (and avoid a scheduled 5-hour layover in Juneau). We also took a red-eye home from Anchorage to Chicago and, despite being heavily medicated, it was just terrible. Neither of us slept at all (thanks to some well-timed squalling infants); by the time we got home at 1 pm we collapsed in a four hour nap. I have written red-eye flights off of my list of possible travel solutions for the future. At least when flying coach.
  
• Bowling: rocks. We've been participating in the Emma bowling league, and a few weeks ago I bowled a career-high 156. How about that?! It almost feels like exercise. But in a fun way.
  
• ELO night: insert enthusiastic hyperbole here. How I Became the Bomb and Kindercastle joined up with a seven piece string section to perform Electric Light Orchestra's double album opus Out of the Blue, one night only at the Mercy Lounge. And these are both extremely talented bands in their own right, but if they decided to take this (daunting and time consuming) act on the road, they'd be INTERNATIONAL SUPERSTARS, I tell you. I kept looking around at the crowd and everyone was smiling the *whole* time. Tell me the last time you saw a rock show in Nashville where you could say the same...
• Fourth of July: vaguely apocalyptic. Casey and I sucked up an uncharacteristic bout of nerves and ventured back into Ashland City for a visit with our oldest friends that turned out to be simply delightful. Then we rode back into town ready to hit the baseball game and were subverted by absolutely ridiculous weather. Monsoonish rainstorms, thunder and lightning, the whole bit. I seriously can't remember ever being rained out of Fourth of July. We didn't see any fireworks, despite having planned to see both the downtown extravaganza and the Sounds blastoff. Weird and boo. The whole situation resulted in us reminiscing about happier Fourths of July in years past, particularly those spent out at the Paine Family Farm, and then I got really sad about missing Jenny and Patrick.
  
• Bridgey: escape artist. After the Epic Independence Day Fail, we arrived home to discover Bridgette, running around a neighbor's yard, soaked and completely freaked out. We assumed that the fireworks + storm had somehow worked her into such a frenzy that she jumped the fence without realizing what was happening. We dried her off, put her and the others to bed, and were most disappointed when she spent all of Sunday showing off her new fence-climbing skill. That's right. Bridgette, the GOOD one, the shy, well-behaved, slightly backwards brown dog has learned to scale chain-link like a monkey. We've temporarily curbed the efforts by wrapping a tarp over the top of the gate, therefore giving her nothing to claw onto, but our eventual (and hopeful) solution involves rabbit wire and hard labor this weekend. Good GRIEF.
• Hot Rod: ridiculous. Austin wakes up every morning and watches part of the Andy Samberg movie Hot Rod, about a quixotic pseudo-stuntman and his loony cast of surrounding characters. He just watches a bit and then stops it and picks it back up again the next morning, laughing like a little kid the whole time. I think it's his new Wet Hot American Summer, and I'm not sure that's a good thing.
• MJ: just sad. I've had this whole defense of Michael Jackson's character and skewering of the media lined up in my head for a week now, but mostly it's been said and it's kind of past the point of relevancy. But Jenny made me smile when she said that her first instinct when she heard the news of his death was to call our cousin Josh and see how he was coping.
  

There, how was that for the Greatest Hits recap version? I think we're all caught up to speed now. I have got to spend more time blogging and less time on Facebook. Can that be a mid-New-year resolution?

never been better

Tonight I'm knocking around the house, solo for a little while. Austin's playing FIFA Soccer with JB. I had planned to spend the alone time working on the filing drawers in the desk in the office I excavated yesterday. Instead I poked around online, played a game, read some educational wedding-related articles. Then I straightened up the house, put away the remnants of our crackers-and-soda snack from this afternoon, and got out the ingredients for tonight's Mexican pineapple salad. And I realized, while I was moving around the house, going through mindless motions, I was smiling the whole time.

I don't talk about religion, on here or anywhere. I'm not a subscriber of any specific doctrine. We don't go to church, and we don't follow any scriptures. I don't have astral convictions, and I don't miss them. But the only word I can find to describe this feeling, this day, this place I'm at in my life, is blessed. I am saturated by blessings. It washes over me, so many times a day, and I wish there was a better way to express my gratitude.

I love our home. We cleaned it yesterday, got the office near to full function, and made some decorating progress. It is safe and warm and comfortable when it's filled with girls, sprawled on the couch with popcorn and ice cream, or when it's just us and our pets, on quiet tv afternoons, or when it's just me and my iTunes. There literally isn't a day that goes by that I don't think how utterly lucky we are that we found *this* house. It felt like an arduous search, and it turned out exactly right.

I love my job. One of the bigger wedding-related dilemmas I've faced (as with every bride in the history of the world, I know) has been the size of the guest list. And this is complicated by the fact that I have 70+ coworkers who are also friends who I can't imagine not celebrating with. It's probably not going to be realistic to invite every Emma staffer plus one, but right now I'm doing my best to find a way to include as many as we can. I think about the very best days at Hatch, when we all felt like a productive family full of friends, and that's how Emma is too. I love it when I make a breakthrough on a collaborative project, I love it when I've finished processing the daily check run, I love it when the power goes out and I wind up laying on the carpet of the second floor lounge doing half-assed pilates with Brooks and Rami and Rachael's puppy. I think I've said this before, but you don't realize how much of your self-esteem is caught up in the work week until you find a job that fulfills you.

I love our pets. We both do, equally, with an unreasonable fervor. We're those crazy pet people and aren't remotely ashamed. Digby is getting closer and closer to being a good dog, and Bridgette is such a sweet girl. We had a brushing session on the back patio last weekend (shedding time is definitely here) and they were both just inhaling the affection and attention. Mackenzie is completely back to her old self, running the house with her larger-than-life attitude and making sure she gets quality time with us before bed every night. Corvinius is, well, an oddball, but a loveable one, and spent a large portion of this afternoon rubbing his face on the corner of my computer screen over. and over. and over again. Oh buddy. And look, we don't like to play favorites with our pets. But every single day, Mischa and Charlie Murphy fill us up with love. Mischa got a new toy today, and she's currently sacked out on her spot at the end of the couch with this new red stuffy wrapped in her arms like a woobie. I just want to hold her so tight. Charlie Murphy loves weekends, particularly couch weekends like today, and the absolute peace and joy he spreads when he's sleeping leaned up against my lap... it's just the best.

I love my friends. Book club friends, work friends, people who don't fall in either category (there aren't many...), I can't get over the support network that surrounds me. I spent a lot of my adolescence thinking of myself as not a "girlfriend" kind of girl, and I'm so happy that I was totally wrong about that. We threw a surprise bachelorette party for Agnes last night, and the house was about to burst from all the girlie love. Lisa and Jenny were missed, but otherwise it couldn't have gone better and I was so glad we could all spend sweet time with Agnes before she takes off for the Great Alaskan Wedding Adventure.

I love my family. The reason I didn't think of myself as a "girlfriend" kind of girl was, obviously, because I have the best built-in girlfriends on the planet, my sisters. We talk every day and nothing feels complete unless it is shared with them. I'm so glad that we live close enough to my dad that we can just have low-key evenings of ceiling fan installation and (really good) chicken wings with him and Lynn. We're so lucky to have them both nearby. I miss my big crazy California family so badly, and one of my absolute favorite things to imagine about our wedding is having them all here together again. And I am just chomping at the bit to get to Seattle (next weekend!) and give my Mom one gigantic hug, followed by a series of smaller ones. It's been almost a year since we've seen her and I can't wait to spend a week on the lake with her and Kam (and Casey and Trent and a deck of cards!).

And of course you knew this was where I was going, but I love Austin. I'm not going to detail all the reasons that he's the man I'm going to marry (I've done that before and certainly will again) but the place where we are in our life together is just especially good right now. I am excited to see him EVERY DAY. How silly is that? I start to feel restless and shifty if it's been more than a couple of hours since I've checked in with him (thanks to IM and texting for completely spoiling me by having my fiance´ available to me at all times). We're on the same page about all these major decisions we've made in the past year and will be making in the next year. We're not exactly wealthy, but it's been a long while since we've had to look at anything and say, from a financial standpoint, "How are we going to make this work?" We carpool almost every day and talk about the stories we hear on NPR. If it sounds idyllic, it is. I can't think of an aspect of my life that isn't made better by just having him with me. We don't have to do everything together (see: FIFA Soccer) but when I'm walking around our house by myself, smiling, it's mostly because of him.

looking back

So I *almost* did it. I missed a single day blogging in April, but I nearly made up for it with two posts in one day a few weeks later. It was good practice, even if it didn't exactly mean I shared something scintillating every day. I will do my very best to NOT take a month off now. But I'll be glad that I can delete that 10 pm daily alarm that says, "BLOG!"

I will say, it was entirely unlikely that you were going to hear from me today. It's 7:30 pm and I'm still in my nightgown, nursing a colossal hangover. Emma Talent Night was, of course, a total blowout, and I drank too many berry vodka drinks much too quickly. It was super, super, super fun, of course, and I've been told that I didn't *act* that drunk, so that's a relief. I appointment myself one of the official photographers for the evening, and got some pretty great shots that got progressively blurry as the night went on. I'm sure just technical problems with my camera, right? But the fun wore off when I woke up on our bathroom floor at 4:15 am. These are probably details I could have spared my parents. But it's possible that my mom was doing a little drunk texting of her own, as I received this at about 10:30 pm:

G p frkn good no tlk yet posl yr m

Thanks, Mom. She was at a Glen Phillips show. Obviously.

You will most likely NOT hear from me tomorrow, as we'll be out of town for the first time in over a year! We're Hotlanta bound in the a.m., cruising by the Holy Mecca (I mean IKEA) and then checking into our very posh hotel that we got for a song because they just opened yesterday! Woot! Then on to Emily and Neil's wedding of amazingness, and I'm just super excited. We'll be home Saturday afternoon, hopefully in time to catch the last of the Market Celebration at the Farmer's Mkt. That seems like good karma, right? Plus, Snowballs! Then Scott Miller at Mercy Lounge Saturday night, YAY. I'm looking forward to the brief road trip with my Boo, it's not an experience we share very often and I think we're both ready for a minibreak.

Happy Quite Nearly May!

the art of being flexible

I'm not always the best person at changing The Plan midstream. It's ok, I'm fine with my own borderline OCD-ness. It is the difference between kid Delaney, who used to lose her homework every day, and adult Delaney, who loves filing things. If it takes a near-disorder to help me keep my life straight, that's the way I prefer it.

So I make lists. And schedules. And sometimes I relish in ignoring them (see: yardwork plans for last weekend). But mostly, I have expectations for what the day will bring, the week, the vacation, the renovation, etc. And when Things don't go according to that plan, sometimes it takes me some time to adjust. Sometimes it's as easy as saying, "Ok, no biggie, we'll do lunch next week," and going and picking up a sandwich. Sometimes I have to write everything down and look at the big picture and rearrange some post-its and say, "Alright, so we'll switch the night we're making soup so we can meet Emily and Neil at Trivia Night, but this will only work if you drive and we leave my car at Casey's." Sometimes it's a big change, something I wasn't prepared for, and it can take me months, even years, to get past the regret, that tiny pang that something isn't quite right, and it hurts a bit when I remember what that something is.

But tonight is just a little tipover. I was leaving work a bit late, heading home to start dinner (skillet chicken pot pie). Austin was at a meeting in Cool Springs (horrors!) and I was hoping to try to time everything right so dinner was ready when he got home. But as I was pulling out of the Emma parking lot, my car was making a horrible noise and dragging to the right. I pulled right over and inspected the damage: a very flat tire. I know this is no big deal. But truthfully, I don't know if I've ever had one. Definitely not since I've had this car (almost four years) and probably not since college.

I ran through my options, pleased that my first instinct was not panic. I tried to remember what kinds of roadside assistance we still subscribe to (at one point I think I was covered under three different plans). I considered how long it could be before Austin's undetermined meeting conclusion, and if he could be any help to me. I wondered for a moment where Dad was. And then I came to my senses, backed up, and parked the car in front of Emma. And waved down the next coworker to leave the building, and lucky for me it was Chris Wood. First he waved back at me cheerfully, then realized that I was beckoning and pulled his truck around. We proceeded to unpack the spare tire out of the back of my car (I repeat, this has never been done before) and try to figure out the jack. Some of the fellows from the contractor crew who are working on Emma's third floor stopped to offer advice. Then Chris Nelson, aka Carlos Contusion, came out to help as well.

We got that tire changed (I say "we," ha!) in no time, with no drama. And I just kept thinking, over and over, my coworkers are my family now. If we had ended up living in California instead of Tennessee, I would have been able to call the Pros from Dover any time I had car trouble. As it was, I always called my dad. But now I have this vast group of reliable, brilliant, kind and helpful folks that I'm surrounded by every day, and they've become my support system. In so many different ways. It's not like there aren't bad days at Emma. But there are just good people. As I do at some point every day, I thought, "How lucky am I?"

I figured driving home on a donut tire was unnecessary, so I hightailed it to the other family, my FIRST family, and hung out at Casey and Trent's house while Austin finished up his meeting and headed back from the evilburbs. We can just leave it at Carmax overnight. Now I'm rethinking the plan for tonight and the rest of the week. By the time we get home tonight it will be too late to start dinner. We can make chicken pot pie on Friday. Maybe tonight we can go to PM and have crab wontons and sushi bites. I can be flexible with my food scheduling.

Sophie Germain

Dark Chocolate and Orange Tart with Toasted Almonds

Well-Loved Recipe

I first tried this recipe in the fall of 2003. I printed it out from Epicurious and made notes after reading the reviews. Among the changes I noted: multiplying the filling recipe by one and a half, taking the crust out of the oven after 9 minutes instead of the recommended 12, and stirring the filling into the ganache before spreading it into the crust.

Chocolate Shortbread Crust with cinnamon and sea salt, already baked

It's not a complicated dessert, really. I would give it an intermediate rating for difficulty. The only real trick is starting early enough. At least two days before you plan on serving it, or you'll be in the kitchen all day. That first time, I decided to make the tart to celebrate Casey's first week of law school, and planned ahead accordingly. I made the dough for the crust two days ahead and let it chill overnight, then rolled it out and baked it the day before.

Filling: chopped toasted almonds, chopped candied orange peel, brown sugar and cinnamon

I also candied the orange peel ahead of time, and let it cool and dry overnight before chopping. The filling is just the candied orange peel, toasted slivered almonds (both all chopped up), plus sugar (the recipe calls for white but I've used brown) and cinnamon. Then I made a ganache, which is so simple that it makes me laugh, and poured a little into the filling so it would hold together on top of the crust. Spread the filling into the crust and pour the rest of the ganache over, then chill overnight. Really, not difficult.

Melting the chopped bittersweet chocolate in the hot cream to make ganache

The night I planned to serve this tart, Trent and I went to a baseball game. The plan was for us to head back to the South Street house after the game, where we'd meet up with Casey, Jenny and Patrick and enjoy the dessert together in celebration. But the ballgame went to extra innings, and we started getting impatient phone calls from C, J & P.

Jenny: "We want to go ahead and eat the tart. We're tired of waiting."
Me: "No, just sit tight. I want us to all eat it together, so it will be special."

Ganache all smoothed out, then a little bit added to the filling to hold it together

Another phone call, ten minutes later...
Jenny: "We're getting really hungry and tired. We want to eat the tart. Stop being selfish."
Me: "Don't be mean! Just be patient!"

Phone rings again...
Jenny: "We aren't waiting anymore. We're going to eat it!"
Me: "FINE. Screw you guys. Whatever." Click.

Filling spread into the tart crust

And then another call, two minutes later...
Jenny (sounds sheepish): "Laney? We love you..."
Me: "Yeah, yeah."
Patrick: "Laney? We love you..."
Me: "Fine, fine."
Casey: "Laney? We love you..."

Finished, with ganache poured over the filling, smooth and shiny. Just chill!

I got home to over a third of the tart (which is supposed to feed 16) gone, and a note next to the pan on the counter:

Front

If you can't read it, it says:
Suggested Names:
1. Holy Fucking Shit Tart
2. Ain't Fuckin' Around Pie
3. Does somebody have to go to law school to get this? Tart
More->

Back

4. Sex Pie All grown up
5. Everybody Loves Delaney (and we're gonna stay up all night thinking about it) Tart
(heart) J, P, C

After all these years, this is still known as the HFS Tart. I brought two to work today, and am feeling pretty good about my status as Most Popular Employee. Who Also Tries the Hardest to Be Most Popular. And Has No Problem Resorting to Shameless Bribery for Affection If Necessary.

far from February

Dad picked me up from work today and took me home so we could look at our impending dooms of home repair. Turns out the prognosis wasn't terrible: fixable hot water faucet, dying-but-not-dead-yet a/c system. No emergencies, just no running water in the kitchen tonight. He'll be here again tomorrow to repair the faucet, and we can hopefully ignore/encourage the air conditioning to just hang in there until we buy the house, at which point we're planning on replacing the whole damn thing. New ductwork and all, hopefully, to make the house more efficient and less, you know, hot.

I was pointing out to Dad that we could live with the a/c system at this level of terribleness, for the time being, because it's always this stuffy in our house, especially in the back. He agreed with me, but then said something like, "But you're my cooking girl. You need a comfortable kitchen."

This afternoon Suz and I were talking about babies, and siblings, and the story she heard on This American Life about girls who were switched at birth. Apparently when they found out, later in life, they realized that their personalities fit in much better with their birth families than the ones in which they were raised. We like to think that our lives are simply an overlapping of influences, but there is clearly something else there. I never really thought that I was born with a personality. I look at Ezra and Elijah and wonder at which points they will be different men, with different goals and ways of speaking. I'm surprised even now at their physical differences, when I mostly just think all tiny babies look the same. I found my picture of Elijah from the day after he was born, and the one I posted here of Ezra, and it's really remarkable the differences in babies' faces.

I think about my sisters and I, and we came from the same places, the exact same ones, and we turned out still very different in our personal selves. Was Jenny born stubborn? (yes.) Was Casey born permanently convinced of her own correctness? (yes.) Was I born prone to procrastination and easy distraction? (ah, yes.) There is the more extreme example of our California cousins, with whom we were raised in total equality, by our parents who are siblings in the most obvious ways, and I swear, those families couldn't be any more different than us.

And this is a silly point to which I'm leading, but how did I get to be a foodie? I know some people don't like that term, but I don't mind it. I don't want to be mistaken for the snob type of foodie. You all know that I will not just eat junk food but I will wallow in it. But I'm a foodie in the sense that I like to think about, talk about and do things relating to food. I'm sure I spent a quarter of my work day detailing my cooking disasters of the weekend (fried corn! that's all I'm going to say! exploding grease-filled kernel torpedoes!) to coworkers, and getting the goods on their own pulled pork and raspberry duck adventures. The friends that I have bonded with at this job, this is what we talk about. My amazing group of book club girlfriends, what do we do when we're all together? We eat. We exchange a month's worth of menu planning emails, and then we all cram into someone's kitchen and stuff our faces while we talk around food.

A few years ago my friend Craig asked me how I became a baseball lover, and I was able to respond to him (in essay form) with the rather precise timeline of my eventual love of the game. Tonight I was peacefully assembling tarts in my kitchen, moving about the motions of simmering cream, whisking ganache, and trying to think back to the time in my life when this started. As a little girl, I loved reading my mother's cookbooks, and eventually embraced my role as kitchen helper. But I don't remember feeling filled with thoughts of food the way I am now. Thoughts of candy? Is that the same thing? I started tackling baking projects, sometimes with Dad: decorating cakes, the baklava incident, salt water taffy that stained our hands blue. In college I was so poor and didn't have a working kitchen until my junior year. After that I started hosting dinner parties.

But I wonder, what did my parents think? Was this some obvious direction I was always heading, or was a fascination with food/cooking just another personality quirk that was revealed as I matured? The way other kids develop a penchant for mathematics or sports? Food is my hobby, my topic, my solace, my celebration. Tonight I reveled in my silent kitchen, my unrushed ballet of spatulas, measuring spoons, taking the lid off the jar of cinnamon with the dull end of a butter knife. Other times I love sharing the act of cooking. Projects like smoked pork butt or thai noodle soup are things that Austin and I can enjoy tackling together. I'm certain that my finest moments with Agnes have happened when one of us was at the stove and the other standing over the cutting board. I'm sure I don't have to explain that my fondest memories of both of my parents have occurred while we were sharing a kitchen.

I'm not quite sure where I'm leading with this, and my attention is waning as the evening draws to a close. I suppose it's not any good to try to identify the sources of my most basic self, any more than scrutinizing my needs for air and water. Is Lover of Food on the Meyers-Briggs test? (Is chocolate an emotion?) When my dad calls me his Cooking Girl, and my mom says I'm inspiring her with my food talk this month, and my sisters and friends are peppering me throughout each day with recipe discussions and ingredient ideas, I can see the bigger picture. Food is the physical representation of my need to take care of everyone.

The tentacles of these relationships run back and forth from Mom to Julia Child; from Dad to the black microwave cookbook, the pages stuck together with decades of toffee-making; from Jenny to the cold sesame noodles I haven't even made yet; from Casey to secret nights of boxed mac-and-cheese and vanilla ice cream with Hershey's syrup. From Agnes to the sledgehammer we used for crushing ice on the patio; from Megan to snapping green beans without a pause in conversation; from Amy to panicked ingredient substitution calls from the market; from Austin to that first flicker of wanting to lick ganache out of his beard. Distant and constant, primal and minute, the web of food in My Life and Family doesn't have a beginning, doesn't have to have come from anywhere. The only piece of advice my mother ever gave me that turned out to be untrue: Food is just fuel for the body. It is not. It's way more than that, and I'm glad for it.

Tomorrow: photo essay on the HFS Tart. That's right, I took pictures. And fair warning: this one involves some R-rated language. In my sisters' handwriting. Sorry, Mom.

end of the day

Three important points:

1. The Dark Knight was remarkable. I haven't even completely wrapped my head around it, and I don't think I will for a while. Heath Ledger's performance is spinning around my brain and won't settle down. Aaron Eckhart was note perfect, and so gruesome in his transformation. Gary Oldman for president? I'd settle for VP. Obama/Oldman 08!

2. Today Jenny dictated a recipe for deceptively simple homemade caramel corn, and I seriously considered coming home early to make some before we went to the movie. Now I'm so exhausted after this crazy week and I really want to just close my computer and go to bed. But there is brown sugar and butter and unpopped popcorn just calling my name from the kitchen, and I don't see how I am going to sleep without it. Laziness vs. Desperate Need for Buttery Sugariness: the battle of a lifetime.

3. Much more important: I can't believe I didn't recap my first meeting with Ezra. We went by the hospital early Tuesday morning, and got to spend a little quiet time with Leia and Richie and a happily sleeping, literally perfect baby boy. I am overwhelmed with awe and gratitude for this new arrival and the perfect storm of my life's influences that led me to be friends with this amazing woman and her remarkable husband and eventually get to be a part of their sons' lives. I just can't wait to get to know him, and to see him make that journey from baby to person the way we can see in Elijah right now. And I can't wait to spoil them both so rotten that their parents have to tell me to stop.

x.

Should I try to type or compose while I'm actually watching an episode of the X-Files? No. I shouldn't.

But I do have some fun news, as I hinted at yesterday. Austin and I spent this evening at the Nashville Rollergirls practice, learning how to keep stats. In theory, we're going to be two of the new Statsgeeks, and tonight was the first night we started to learn the process. At first everything was a little weird but once we started actually watching some jams and marking down the offensive and defensive moves, it started to come together like a puzzle. Who knows if this will turn into a major extracurricular, but it was entertaining and it was fun to talk about it on the way home.

Here's my food-themed contribution for tonight (because you don't want to hear about the frozen pizza I just happily consumed)...

Foods that Remind me of My Mother:

Potato Salad- When I write this on a menu, I refer to it as Mom's Potato Salad. On the recipe card, which I wrote down from her dictation about thirteen years ago, there are such helpful instructions as "add a clunk of mayonnaise, maybe a little more." I don't know at which point she started putting chopped dill pickles in her own version, but Uncle Bill told her that Grandma said to him privately, in a very prim manner, "Vickie puts RELISH in her potato salad." I started using unpeeled red potatoes in my own variation, and I feel a little impious every time I do.

Sweet Potatoes- My mom isn't quite a foodie. When we were little, her mantra was, "It's just fuel for the body." This was generally in response to us saying, "I don't WANT to eat white beans! I HATE white beans." (Okay, to me. I was the one who said that.) It is certainly a universal truth that often the simplest foods taste the best, and for my mom, when she only has herself to feed and no obligations for the evening, nothing satisfies like a baked sweet potato. It is both an indulgence and a necessity.

Tootsie Roll Pops- In retrospect, I don't know if Mom even likes these. But she always had them in her purse, and we only got one if we were well behaved. Candy was a very, very limited commodity in my youth, so these made an impression. The unfortunate side effect is that now, they don't really count as candy to me at all. Only the hundreds of other forbidden sweets will do.

Toasted Bread with Garlic and Tomato- In the summer of 2003, the week of our Jansen family reunion at Dunn School, I got there a day or two earlier than my sisters, and got a little private hangout time with Mom. I cooked dinner for her, Kam, Mark and Amy, but I can't remember what I made (probably the famous pork loin, and grilled corn with Parmesan butter, my favorite recipe that summer). Mom came out and sat with me on the steps of the patio, and she brought a knife, some slices of toasted crusty bread, a few ripe tomatoes and some garlic cloves. She had learned a trick in her travels to Italy earlier in the summer, and she showed me how to slice open the garlic and smear the cut side into the bread, really pressing hard to imbue the bread with the garlic oils. Then she sliced the tomatoes in half and crushed the open tomatoes against the garlicky bread, seeds and all. I can't remember if this trick also involved olive oil; it seems likely but I am pretty sure I'm skipping a step. I only remember it was sunset, and she was describing these perfect evenings in Italy that started with this simple snack that oozed with flavor and freshness.

Katharine Hepburn's Brownies- Surely the simplest brownie recipe ever, and I think she says she cut it out of the newspaper. Who knows if Katharine Hepburn ever actually baked them, but I love the idea that such a classy and timeless woman would definitely have preferred a classy and timeless recipe like these. We always cook them a little bit to overdone, and the nearly-burned corners are, of course, the best. I can remember many a night, growing up, that would end with brownie snacks while we finished a movie downstairs in the family room, all five of us piled up on the big gray sectional couch with Grumpy at our feet and a pot of tea on the coffee table.

I'm sure there are so many more, and I'll think of all of them as soon as I close the computer and start getting ready for bed. Maybe I'll pull together a Volume 2 for you, as we soldier on through July, the month of Food Writing.

for Midgie

Dear Mary,

My earliest memories are of your home. It was a retreat, a playground, replete with treats and marvels. I spent hours of my childhood sifting through boxes of costume jewelry (which I never saw you wear) or scheming to get into the cookie jar (shaped like a cow) where I knew I'd find Milanos or Fudge Stripes. Yours was a home filled with comfort and mystery: apothecary jars, glass figurines, towers of books, bottles of rose-scented lotion, and your father's desk, crammed with secret cubbyholes and coin collections. I was certain that your backyard, with a swing on the cherry tree and a pool we weren't *supposed* to jump into, was my happiest place on the planet.

After we moved to Tennessee, I mythologized you. We were removed by distance from the daily annoyances of generation gaps, necessary discipline, family conflict. I wrote you hyperbolic letters and believed that perhaps you would intervene and force my parents to grant my dearest wish (which was to have my ears pierced). I read you the lyrics to Missing You by John Waite over the telephone. You sent the most fabulous and thoughtful birthday boxes, which were always late but legendary.

It is from you that I am sure I inherited my tendency to lavish affection on animals, having conversations with them, sneaking them treats. I developed a love of word puzzles and classic novels from years of sharing them with you. When I was young my mom told me about many Christmas eves when she would hear you up late, crying, overwhelmed because you had so many presents to wrap and had waited until the last minute. Even as a little girl, I recognized my own tendencies in this story, the likelihood that I would procrastinate and then be angry with myself, the self-pity, the desire to do everything for everyone and make everything the most special, the most perfect.

When I was younger, I was sure I had been granted two of the most opposite grandmothers possible. In comparison to my father's brash mother, who brooked no bullshit and used that word often, yours seemed a mild-mannered, profanity-free life. Hazel had been married often, lost husbands in wars, kept a lot of convenience foods in her vast freezer, and governed her entire family (almost none of whom were related by blood) with guilt and sass. In contrast, you were soft-spoken, a little bit silly, devoted to your church, reserved in dress and a total pushover. Even when you were angry, which wasn't nearly as often as it should have been, there was an optimism to it, a disappointment in the offending party because you expected more of everyone else around you.

I can see it clearly now: you and Hazel were united by a single driving force that provided you with a life's purpose and also something to talk about with each other, despite being on opposite sides of an historical divide. You both loved and protected your family with a fierceness that can't be captured in words, and by which I find myself shaped every day of my life. It moves me the way other people are moved by ambition or desire.

As your memories and realities faded, you kept your sweet demeanor and curious nature. Your face, as it grew more and more blank, was still always smiling. I haven't had a conversation with you that related to our real lives in years. It's like you've been gone the whole time. And now you really are, you were gifted your wish of a peaceful passing, and somehow it's made you more real in my mind than you have been in a long time. My sisters and I are flying to San Jose today for your memorial, and I'm planning the menu for the April birthday party at Bill's house after a service at the church. Wednesday night I dreamed that the food wasn't ready and there were hungry boys everywhere (and a lion) and I was deciding to cook churrasco even though we didn't have a grill or any meat marinating. And then you were there, and you gave me this long, strong hug, and I was filled with a rush of power and gratitude and light that I carried with me long after I woke up, got dressed, moved on with my day.

There is no less trite way to say it: our family was blessed to have you at the start of it. You brought countless discoveries and beauties into our lives, and I don't think any of us are going to ever stop missing you. Thank you for always bringing and keeping us together, and for giving us all the strength and intelligence to also go our own ways, wherever that has been. I'm hoping for another visit with you in my dreams soon. There is still so much I can't wait to tell you.

Father:Daughter::Cookie:Car Accident

*Editor's Note: There is just not another word for cookie. I would like to tell this story using some gracefully substituted synonyms, but they don't exist. If I called it the British "biscuit" you wouldn't know what I was talking about. Please just know that I know the word "cookie" gets used way too often in tonight's post, and my English teacher-daughter side is bristling at the uneven composition.

My dad is famous for his cookies. My whole life, this has been one of his true culinary masterpieces: the chocolate chip cookie. He's a great cook, fearless and inventive and kind of a maniac in the kitchen, spatulas flailing and garlic skins on the floor. But the cookie, it's his major achievement. He says he regularly gets invited to parties knowing full well that, really, only his cookies were invited, and his attendance is just tolerated. He has had friends write songs about his Cookie Man-hood.

A defining memory of my childhood, and certainly pertinent to my own baking/cooking/sweet tooth tendencies, is making cookie dough with Dad after we'd cleaned up the dinner dishes. It's basically the Toll House recipe on the back of the chocolate morsels package, with some key adjustments that are, obviously, top secret. We never thought far enough ahead to soften the butter, so he'd throw it in the microwave and a tiny bit would inevitably melt. A little shortening, brown and white sugars, eggs, vanilla, etc. all whirled together, then flour and baking soda, a little salt. I always campaigned to be the one to add the chocolate chips, and tried to sneak in more than we needed. As if that is possible. After the dough was assembled and the first batch was in the oven, it was time for "bocas," which is what we called the rolled up bite of dough that was popped into our mouths on command. We only got one boca each.*

I have Dad's recipe, of course, and have made his cookies occasionally in the years since I have become the Official Baker for the Masses. Casey makes them more often than I do. But it seemed like, lately, I couldn't make them the way I remembered from childhood. Specifically, they weren't chewy. So Dad and I have been talking about this, brainstorming, putting our combined baking science knowledge to the test. This is what we do, sometimes we try to catch up and I feel like I have nothing significant to say, and then sometimes he calls to check in and we end up on the phone for an hour and a half, talking about dessert. We threw around ideas like adding more eggs, less flour, the ratio of butter to shortening, brown sugar to white. I wondered if we should adjust the temperature, and he said, "Well, you don't want to cook them too hot, then the outside will get done and the inside will still be soft." BINGO. The proverbial light bulb went off. That is EXACTLY what we want to happen! So I tried it: added another egg to his original recipe, skimped on the flour, slightly more brown sugar, and cranked the oven up an extra 25 degrees, pulling the cookies out 2 minutes earlier. Eureka!

I called Dad in triumph and got his answering machine. "Dad, it's Delaney, I did it, call me back!"

My phone rings a minute later and it's him, I answer singing, "Hiiii," I'm skipping around the house with joy at my baking accomplishment. His voice is tense. He says, "What's happened?" I say, "I did it! I made the cookies chewy!"

He says, "You weren't just in a car accident?"

"Noooo."

He sighs, sounds weary, beaten by a phantom terror. "I heard, 'Dad, it's Delaney, I need you, I was in a wreck.'"

"No, Dad. The cookies."

And here's my Dad: he shakes it off. He says, "Oh, great! What did you do?" and we make arrangements to transfer said cookies to him in the next few days for his own taste-testing approval.

I've made several batches since that first triumph, and I think I've still got some adjustments to make. They're very flat, and the last two batches have done a weird thing where the insides look layered when you bite into them. How can I make them not flat but still soft? That's going to involve leavening, right? Or having the dough cold before I bake? Hmm. It's a lifelong quest.

Oh, and I made cookies for book club, and had to make one tray without chocolate chips. At Austin's request. Because he is odd, and sometimes I am reminded that he and I are very different people.

*Another future-parent anxiety: am I going to let my kids eat raw cookie dough?

Portrait of a Childhood, Vol 1: The Woods

The image of a bullet hitting the floor in a ubiquitous movie trailer suddenly reminds me of how much time my sisters and I spent playing with spent shotgun shells that we found in the woods.

We literally spent years of our lives in the woods. We knew every inch for a square mile around our house at least. In the summers, we'd be off in the morning after breakfast and not come home until Dad whistled for dinner. In the fall, we shuffled paths through the fallen leaves. There was an unfinished house on the ridge, only frames and foundation, where we'd assemble dream house fantasies. There was a field on the opposite ridge, past a barbed wire fence (which didn't stop us), where I imagined riding a horse or running in a white gown towards a lover. There were creeks on either side, which met at a pond below the turnaround at the end of our street. We waded and found skipping stones, invented a fairyland (Lynker) on the banks, found tiny shells and occasionally a crawdad or discarded copperhead skin. These were our treasures, squirreled away in boxes under the springs of our mattresses.

It wasn't a desolate area, where we lived. There were dozens of houses on our street. But we were at the end, and felt an exclusive ownership to the surrounding hills. We had names for everything, most of which were probably wrong: mulberry bushes, Indian money, oysters and waterskeeters. I ripped up cattails and used the down to make a (highly unsanitary) pillow for Dolly. We had shredded canvas sneakers just for creekwalking, and further up the creek on the western side of the street, there were pools almost deep enough to swim in.

Directly behind our house, there was a shell of a car at the base of the hill. The glass was all broken out, the roof caved in, most of the upholstery rotted or cracked. We told each other brutal theories about a family dying in whatever accident had left the car there, covered in brambles and rust. We found the broken windshield glass, in perfect cubes, throughout the gravel in our driveway and under the grass, and collected it, pretending to have baggies full of dirty diamonds.

We knew which sticks could be hollowed out and made into whistles or wands. We were terrified and fascinated by cicadas and praying mantis. There was a blue heron that lived in the pond one fall, and a pair of white ducks with red eyes another spring. There were tulip poplars with perfectly aligned branches that we could climb twenty feet in the air.

One summer we were playing in the pool at the base of the waterfall that flowed from the southern end of the pond. The water was clear down there, and deeper, less algae, less reeds and tangles in the shallows. I only remember being there with Casey. Across the surface of the pool, coming towards us in a rapid, twisting whirl, was a cottonmouth. It moved as if I was pulling it towards us on a string, its jaw wide open, fangs bared, white spongy interior exposed. I do not remember even the moment it took to recognize the danger, or the decision to run. All that I remember is literally hauling Casey up the waterfall like a sack of potatoes, before she knew what was happening.

My not-even-a-parent-yet overprotectiveness is aghast when I look back. I can't believe we ran around like that, that close to the water, to the wildlife, to the hunters in the wintertime. I think that I would never let my kids out there. I am not questioning my parents' judgment. They were right, we were perfectly safe, and knew how to get home quickly if we were scared. Our imaginations were enriched by having so much territory at our disposal. But now I wonder if my own current existence is so homogenized that I would never allow such adventures for my family. So much of it seems dangerous or filthy, ticks and nettles and invisible creatures that crashed away in the underbrush as we climbed up a hill.

We went for a walk around Dad's house this spring, and I hung back from the others and sat down next to his creek, examining the ecosystem for the first time in 15 years. As you all know, I'm just not the outdoorsy one anymore. My motto is, "I love not camping." I scoff at people who offer stories of going on a nice hike. I haven't sat on the always-damp ground of a forest and stared at the countless movements in every square inch in a long time.

If I do raise kids, it will probably be in the city. We love Nashville, I love how I see people I know everywhere I go, but still have (pretty) good grocery stores within 10 minutes of my house and the big fireworks show on 4th of July within walking distance. But what will my (hypothetical) kids be missing if they don't grow up with a pond, a field, a mysterious unfinished house and crashed car to explore? On the flipside, what did I miss by not growing up in the city? I think I know the answer to that: very little.

pre-road trip

I'm leaving work at 2:30 today. Heading across town to pick up The Boo, go to The Bank, pick up Casey and Trent and then Patrick, and then driving a packed car down to Sewanee, the University of the South, for my sister Jenny's first opening at the art gallery for which she is now director. That's pretty cool, right? Look at my successful sisters. I'm just in awe, all the time. Somehow their success makes me feel ok about not doing anything meaningful at all. Instead of feeling jealous or inferior, I just figure, this is their time. They have worked so hard for this. I haven't worked hard for anything. So I'm just proud of them and figure I'll come around to finding something to work hard for, eventually.

Speaking of, my freelance baking fell apart. So no freelance for me right now, and that's hurting me financially, a little bit. So if you need anything BAKED or edited? or something, call me. I'm good.

I packed up some CDs for the road, and one that I grabbed is Song and Dance, Man by Mike Plume Band. Anybody out there ever heard them? Damn that's a good album.

gotta go save that princess, don't interrupt me

I totally didn't go see Mike Doughty at 3rd and Lindsley tonight. I even bought a ticket in advance.

Instead I stayed home with Austin and Jenny and Patrick and ate good food and played Nintendo. We made Curried Couscous with Roasted Vegetables and Cilantro Yogurt, yum yum. It gets better every time I make it, I think it's been the biggest breakthrough hit meal of this year. Cilantro Yogurt would be good in a bowl with a spoon, let alone with lots of spicy things smeared around on the plate with it. And then Double Hot Chocolate Pudding for dessert, with cayenne and Dutch-process cocoa (direct from the Netherlands, thanks Sherraden) and chopped Ghiradelli bittersweet and cinnamon and espresso powder. Four hours later, I'm thinking, Geez, why am I not sleepy? Oh. Caffeine-loaded dessert, duh.

Now I'm listening to Austin talk on the phone to his brother (one of my greatest joys in the world) and tossing out a wuss-ass blog so I can get back to the blue room and keep hacking away at Super Mario World (or whichever version it is, I never remember, the one with Yoshi).

And I'm not even pissed at myself that I skipped that show tonight. I went out last night (to see the Long Players at Mercy Lounge, which was, of course, amazing, but boy was that a weird crowd, all those old people out after 9 pm when it was like 40 degrees out. It has been a long time since I have thought, I'm too young to be here.) and I had way more fun tonight piled up in bed with Jenny screaming and cursing at the video game and remembering all the retarded names we had for the Mario enemies when we were little. I am sure I'll address it more later, and I still feel superstitious talking about it, but I'm so glad J & P have come home to Nashville. It makes everything feel less urgent somehow. More normal.

Oh, and there are lots of lame things about my job, at least one of which is my boss being totally random and inconsistent, but sometimes that comes around to be a good thing, like when he decides to give us Veteran's Day off, a day that no person who doesn't work for the government, or who didn't actually fight in any wars, deserves to take off. But I'll take it, for sure. My plans are to (still) wash my makeup brushes (I swear it) and run the self-clean cycle on my oven so my turkey won't start any fires. Thanksgiving oven fires = bad. And to dig around in my garage until I find the 86 page Super Mario cheat guide that I printed off the internet a couple of years ago, so I can figure out how to beat the secret in Donut Flats 2.

I didn't promise you anything insightful tonight. Sorry. Gotta go spin jump on some koopas.

Halloween Ghost(dog) Story

So Halloween night, Austin and I pulled together our costumes (he was a mime, I was a buttery nipple shot). We left the house around 8, with the intention of going to Carmen's house for the costume party and eventually moving on to the 5 Points Pub Crawl. We were running a little bit late, but it was ok. We put Mischa in the back yard, kicked the cats out of the front room, set the alarm, drove away from the house, heading down 19th towards Holly.

I was wearing false eyelashes, which maybe diminish my eyesight a little bit. I saw something moving in the road, and said, "Is there an animal ahead of us?" I realize it's a dog, and it's running down the street in the same direction we're driving. I see a pink collar, a familiar shape of brown backside, black body. I said, "Austin, oh my God. It's Mischa."

Austin leaped out of the car, I drove slowly down the street, calling for her, freaking out. Austin was running full strength down 19th (in mime makeup, striped shirt, beret, dress shoes). At different points we were both running, both driving, calling the whole time. We saw the dog run behind someone's house and almost had her cornered, and then she took off again through another backyard. By this time we were at the corner of 20th and Holly, which dead-ends into the golf course. And we couldn't see any movement, for about 15 minutes we just rode in circles, trying to shine the headlights into the park, driving around calling out the window. And I was thinking, We have lost our dog. She's gone. She's not even going to know how to come back. We spent all this time falling in love with this dog and she's gone. How are we going to go to sleep tonight? I kept saying, "I can't believe this. I just can't believe this." Like a mantra.

After we'd been searching for about a half hour, I said,"Let's go back to the house and get a flashlight and come back and retrace our steps." We drove home, pulled up next to the house, and there is a familiar nose peeking out of the chain link fence of the backyard. Mischa is at home, where she belongs. And apparently has been the whole time.

We just sat there in the car staring at her through the fence. I could have cheerfully strangled her, and she hadn't even done anything wrong. Apparently we've been harassing some stranger's dog all over Shelby Bottoms. Austin says, now, after the fact, that he knows it wasn't her. I still feel like maybe it was. Maybe she jumped the fence, let us give chase, then doubled back and headed home and someone (who read our address on her collar) dropped her back in the yard while we were still driving in circles. I know that is unlikely. But I stood within 6 feet of that dog in someone's front yard and I swear I would have known if it wasn't Mischa. This dog had the same markings, the same ears, the same sleek shininess, the same PINK COLLAR. And the same extremely annoying habit of letting you get near to her and then taking off again right as you grab for her collar.

So we locked Mischa up inside (just to be safe) and headed to Carmen's. By then the party was in full boozy swing, and it took me forever to calm down, to get my head out of the near-disaster it turns out we just WEREN'T in. Austin's eye makeup was smeared from running. After a while I settled in, and the party (and subsequent adventures) was a lot of fun. I was a buttery nipple shot because my other girlfriends were also shots: Shannon was a White Russian, Megan a Purple Hooter Shooter, Carmen a Redheaded Hooker, Leia was Sex on the Beach. I posted the link to pictures yesterday. Austin was a killer mime, while Chris Grainger might have been my favorite costume of the night (a redneck football coach or something, but it was just so NOT Chris, it didn't look anything like him, it was very bizarre to look at his face and realize it was him).

We walked to Rumours East and then to 3 Crow, which was such a mob scene it took ten minutes to get from the front door to the back. I bailed after that, headed over to Mercy Lounge to see Trent play a showcase for Americana Music Week. That was a great show, high energy, much hilarity from Supe and Mike Webb in (sort-of) costumes. I was getting body glitter on everyone I hugged, I hope I didn't get any married men in trouble. Home and in bed by 12:30. Very successful Halloween, after all, and I'm really glad Mischa was in her bed at the end of the night, even if maybe there was no chance that she wouldn't be.

Oh, and remember me saying that it wasn't long before she decided she should sleep in our bed with us? Yeah, not long at all. That was last night, and it took an extended negotiation session to settle her back in her spot in front of my closet. Austin got up with her about 7:30 this morning, and at some point between then and 9:30 (when I woke up), she came back and slept with me. It was sort of nice.

I'm getting into this NaBloPoMo challenge. When have I ever promised you I'd talk about something and then actually DID? I'm probably not going to bother discussing the pumpkin patch/orchard trip, since I shared some cute pics from there and that is sort of all I wanted to address about it. But I have lots more I want to discuss now, thoughts I jotted down during a panel discussion at the Country Music Hall of Fame today (featuring Scott Miller, my favorite) about musicians and writers and the creative process and inspiration.

Happy 87th birthday to Mary Frances Jansen, my maternal grandmother, my abuelita. I miss you, Grandma.