another palate cleanser

in the last few weeks, the baron has made several summer shirts (knits, no less!) for things 1&2, and also the jacket above, which has just sleeve hems and buttons to add.  she started these clothing projects from a sincere need to pad out summer wardrobes (well, not the jacket; the jacket is for a nephew, for next fall), but now she's feeling a bit of dread about returning to the as-yet-unfinished quilt.

on one hand, the baron regrets her choice to spiral quilt a 7ft. square quilt (1/4 inch spirals, really, the baron?).  on the other, she really likes the look of the spirals, as they so nicely set off the straight lines of the quilt top.  also, it's come on summer now, so the thought of sitting at a table wrestling with a heavy, uncooperative blanket does not appeal to her. sometimes it happens that, mid-way through a project, the baron falls out of love with the pattern or the fabrics she's chosen and can't fathom, even a little, why they appealed to her in the first place.  in those cases, faced with regret, wasted time, effort and money, she guiltily tucks the project away, to be finished at a later - much later - date.  that's not happening now, though: the baron still really loves everything about this giant quilt, from the simple block pattern to the colorful fabrics and even the fabric she picked for the binding (the baron has been historically dissatisfied about her binding fabrics).    

so, in summary...the baron, she's feeling all the feelings, and perhaps just needs to grit her teeth and finish (as seems to be the case with so many of her sewing projects).

mourning glory

the baron, the husband, baby x, and the two big dogs have plans to travel to upstate new york later this week. the husband has made this trip many, many times; the baron just twice.

they'll be visiting the husband's members of nuclear and extended family, one of whom is very, very ill. this trip is will give baby x a too-brief opportunity to meet his kin, and the baron wishes the circumstances were better.

she's got no sense of humor about this; pithy is the best she can do.

so much pregnancy test carnage

lats friday marked the end of the baron's 14th week of pregnancy, which means she's now a bit into the second trimester. she's feeling better by inches as the weeks pass, but has still not recovered her pre-pregnancy energy levels. she's back on complex carbohydrates, though, so that's a definite plus.

she read a few baby books early on- in the vein of 'what to expect when you're expecting' - and was delighted to learn that pregnancy may (or, as things go, may not) exacerbate headaches in women who are prone to them anyway. the baron, lucky gal (!), is prone to them, real, REAL migraines that come from nowhere and last for days into weeks, their strength waxing and waning: sometimes, the pain is receded, into the far corners of her head, other times, it's at the fore, at the right temple, and affecting everything she does.

reader, wouldn't you know it? despite her hopes to the contrary, the baron IS one of those women for whom headaches are worse during pregnancy! she's made this judgment based on the 4 week bender going on in her brain, the one that the extra-strength tylenol isn't fixing at all (oh, excedrin for migraine, how she misses you). the quality of this migraine is peculiar, what with the fact that it seems to originate from up along the right side of her neck and into her head. so. that's kind of new.

at first, because of the weird neck thing, the baron thought maybe too many hours at her desk or maybe the mostly-deflated state of the bed pillows might be to blame. she's tried making adjustments: changing the angle of her computer's monitor at work, new pillow configurations, self- and husband-administered neck massages, all to no avail. in the end, the baron has decided that the headache? the one that seems like IT WILL NEVER GO AWAY BECAUSE ALL SHE CAN TAKE IS EXTRA-STRENGTH TYLENOL? that migraine?

the baron believes it's the baby, using all his/her leisure time to develop new and fashionable styles of migraine headache. because that's what fetuses do.

also, thyroid cancer? was headache free.

---------------------

the photo below was taken last august, on a morning when the baron felt a little off - a little sick to her stomach and achy. she took one test, which came back positive, then sent the husband back to the pharmacy to get as many other pregnancy tests as he could lay his hands on; they wanted to be sure, false positives and all that. even though the baron is bitter, today, about her appetite, and huge boobs, and lovely fall wardrobe that no longer fits over her hips, and the headache, and the frequent (but, admittedly, diminishing) vomiting, she's very, very, very happy about those tests. and about being pregnant. go team!

butterfly bush

two years ago, maybe three, the baron and the husband planted two butterfly bushes near the front steps of their house.


it turns out they actually DO attract butterflies...


every afternoon the baron - and the dogs, when they're not otherwise preoccupied with squirrels - takes a seat on the front steps to watch the aerial traffic, all blues and yellows and blacks and browns.

the end of summer

the baron and the husband had a very successful summer, as far as the vegetables go. (fruit, reader, was significantly less successful: three strawberries, a handful of blueberries and blackberries, and lots of peach pits don't add up to much.) sadly, summer is coming to and end, and the vegetable plants in the garden are beginning to wither... last weekend, the husband took out the cucumber plants, and it seems that the watermelon (one fully mature fruit so far) is not far behind. though the tomatoes, hot peppers, green beans and okra are still quite healthy and productive, the baron is quickly losing interest in the garden. she cannot, for instance, fathom canning ANYTHING ELSE. which means... free tomatoes for everyone!

the garden in july

the garden, to which the baron alluded in her last post, is overwhelming her. really. she looks at the full-to-bursting bounty and feels dread. who knew that, with just a little water, those plants would take off so aggressively.?

the other night, the baron had two dreams: in the first, the baron, her mother, and one of her lesser cousins are at disneyland with harlan and chester, neither of whom are on leashes. at one point, they pass a reflecting pool (the likes of which the baron has never seen at the actual disneyland). chester walks out onto the pool, turns to look at the baron, then lays down for a nap. on top of the water. like jesus the cat. cut to: the baron, in her dream, wakes up in the morning. she knows it has rained, and she decides to go outside to check the garden. somehow, the garden has become the size of a field and the baron has only planted tomatoes. tidy rows and rows of tomatoes. AND THEY ARE ALL RIPE. every one is ready to be harvested. and processed for canning. and then baron woke up, a sweaty tangle of sheets and panic.

doesn't that sound like a bad trip followed by a stress dream?

in any case, see the cucumber (one of anxiety-inducing thousands) below, and the watermelon (one of a more manageable 6) too.

it seemed such a good idea

reader, as you may know, the baron and the husband are very, VERY keen gardeners. every year, they wait impatiently for the last frost to come and go so that they might get their newly sprouted seedlings into the ground.

early this past spring, the husband built three vegetable boxes in the sunniest spot in the yard. in previous years, they had had some success with vegetables, but the bounty was not nearly enough, so the baron thought, to justify the time, effort and expense.

so.

it turns out that gardening by box is a really good idea. a really, REALLY good one. so good, in fact, that the baron should not have erred on the side of caution by planting multiples of everything. and, reader, it's not as though she planted a few of each... she actually planted, for instance, 10 green bean plants, 18 tomato plants, 10 okras... you get the idea.

her worst idea by far turns out to be 16 cucumber plants, planted in rows of four, all of which are bearing cucumbers at an alarming rate. the baron thought that she'd try her hand at canning this year (she loves pickles), but reader, it's getting kind of ridiculous. she's spent the past two weekends a fixture in the kitchen, sterilizing jars and lids, mixing vinegar and water and pickling salt, trying to find a way to fit one. more. cucumber. slice. into a pint jar. it's been harrowing.

but.

she's still enjoying it. except.

after her last afternoon spent pickling, she now has a total of 16 pint jars and 3 quart jars of pickles; so, a lot of pickles. and there are still so very many flowers on the cucumber vines. AND the tomatoes (18 plants, remember?) have only just begun to ripen. sigh.

scenes from a vacation

the baron and the husband recently took a trip abroad, to ireland.

the baron thoroughly enjoyed their trip, especially:
being free of the husband's blackberry
the pleasant surprise of finding vegetarian restaurants in nearly every city they visited (and eating the vegetarian version of the traditional irish breakfast)
the weather
the excuse to imbibe every day - and she'd never had guiness or irish coffee before
the hotels
the novelty of watching 'gilmore girls' in a foreign country

the baron didn't particularly appreciate:
the lack of good fabric stores
that the husband hit two curbs
that gasoline cost 1 euro 20 per litre

below are some of the photos from their trip, which the baron has decided to present to you without context. enjoy!

that summer they went to neela's wedding...

in 2004, the baron, the husband, and their friend lalee were invited to a wedding in montana. the three went together - joined by dexter and the VERY NEWLY adopted tucker and harlan - and camped along the way.

the grand canyon: here, tucker is thinking it doesn't look so big.

here, the dogs are thinking they can take lalee and the baron into the canyon.

montana: resting on the shore of a lake, just after a two hour hike. harlan hated it, as you can see in his expression.

at glacier national park: the baron and lalee. the baron is thinking, 'is camping over now? because that would be really great.' harlan's thoughts are running along the same lines.

the long goodbye

reader, some of you know that the brother was recently here for a week's visit, having called the baron 6 days before his date of arrival to say, 'hey. i have a week off. can i come visit?' the baron and the husband were - of course! - delighted that the brother chose to spend his free week with them... he is, after all, a super easy house guest, requiring essentially no entertaining; more often than not, they'd find him in the sun room, deep into his book.

the baron became quite accustomed to having the brother there, seeing him at lunch and cooking for three at dinner. he is, as ever, good company, sober and silly and sentimental and spiritual all wrapped up into one really tall package. the only drawback to having him there came when he and the husband would jointly decide to rebuff the baron's requests. her personality, though forceful, is not enough to overcome the likes of this (their response to her request to take a picture of the two of them):

the husband: really?
the brother: come on, the baron, do we have to?
the husband: he's too tall. i'll have to stand on a stump...
the brother: hey, you know what we should do? we should do it like in 'lord of the rings', like gandalf and frodo!

the brother: i'll stand back here...
the husband: ok.

the brother: lemme see that picture.
the husband: that is great!
the brother: that's so good! it's exactly right!
(hearty laughs all around. the baron did not participate, but could be heard to mutter, 'stupid'.)


the week's visit passed too quickly, as all good things do, and the brother left last thursday. *sniff, sniff.

june gloom

reader, you might not know about june gloom (except for you three: carlos, laura and xtina), but it's a very real occurrence in california. in late spring and early summer, the days begin with heavy cloud coverage and maybe a little drizzle, and end with weak sunshine.

the husband, when he was just the boyfriend, wrote a heavily illustrated story for the baron wherein he referred to her as heliotropic. she laughed at his phrasing then, but in the years since (and especially lately, since her part of maryland has had rain and cloudy skies for the better part of 6 weeks) she's come to think it might be true. the cloudiness casts a grey dinge over everything, including the baron. she's lethargic, reader, and can't get out of it.

she can't even muster anything interesting to write for you. so, she's pawning you off on more established and talented writers at:

homeland security today (note that handsome devil on page 46)

the new york times

slate

salon

the last of the warmish days

readers, it's getting cold where the baron lives. summer - and those really warm, wear-only-shorts-and-tank-tops-and-flip-flops-days - is long gone, so now she's trying to trick herself into believing that 60 degrees can pass for a mild day. it's not really working, sigh. sometimes, though, she sits on the wall at the top of the yard and looks out at the green expanse of the lawn. in the shade of the old oak tree, in her jeans and sweatshirt, she can almost feel a hint of summer.

cucumber

despite the excitement and happiness the baron felt earlier this year, with the first blush of spring, it's been a pretty underwhelming season for gardening. the reasons for this are numerous: staggering water bills, the husband's work and travel schedule, the baron's work schedule, and those goddamn squirrels who eat every effing thing not nailed down in the garden.

last year, the garden yielded green beans and tomatoes beyond counting, lettuce and okra for months, edamame, and even the odd brussel sprout. this season, not so much. the green beans were back, but the tomatoes, okra and brussel sprouts were a bust. the lettuce did well for awhile, but it's now gone to seed. see? kind of underwhelming.

but don't worry reader, the summer wasn't a total wash: there were a few bright spots. they did get some grapes, the husband's hops plant is growing like mad, a few pear tomatoes were harvested and the cucumber? a TOTAL and RANDOM delight - the baron didn't plant it, still doesn't know where it came from, but was glad to add it to her monday night salad. anyway, there's always next year.

the peaches that weren't

the baron and the husband have pretty substantial gardens at their home - both ornamental and functional. the baron particularly loves the fruit and vegetable plants - her philosophy is that, if she's taken the time to grow it, it should feed her. sweat equity and all that, you know?

anyhoo, it turns out the baron wasn't the only one awaiting the summer harvest... see the peach pits, picked so clean, above. the baron's best guess is that the squirrels (or 'greedy bastards', as she's taken to calling them) stripped the peach tree of its fruit (some 75 peaches!), even though that fruit was not yet ripe. the nectarine tree? also free of fruit. the plum tree, the apple trees? ditto.

now the squirrels, having denuded the fruit trees, have moved on to the tomato plants. with alarming frequency, the baron is finding half eaten pear tomatoes, still green, or golf ball sized silver fir tree tomatoes scattered about the yard. the baron wanted those tomatoes for herself, doused in olive oil and white balsamic vinegar, with chunks of white cheddar cheese!

yes, reader, she is angry.

damn those squirrels!

july 4, 2008 - very late in the day

after their dusky walk, the three of them made their way back to chamlar, and let me tell you reader - schroon lake was PACKED with people. the baron wondered aloud from whence these people came? the husband claimed that they traveled to schroon lake from the neighboring lakeside communities to see the town's kick-ass fireworks show. he seemed to be right: the small public beach, the best spot for fireworks-viewing, was crowded right up to the water and far, far up onto the lawn. the baron and the husband decided that the fireworks would be better experienced from chamlar's dock: the quietude afforded them there would more than compensate for the treetops that might obscure a some portion of the show.

once back to chamlar's beach, the husband and tucker made for the dock, and the baron made for the husband's cousin rob, who planned to view the fireworks from the lake, and had taken a small rowboat out to that end. rob asked the baron to join him, and the baron - having never been in a rowboat, having never seen fireworks from a lake - was happy for the invitation. rob, being good company and a gentleman to boot, smoked his bowl downwind from her. they talked about politics, bat sonar, and the divine and beautiful nature of sparkling lights in the sky.

later, much later, after the town-sponsored fireworks, the husband's family began to collect on the beach for the nightly bonfire. this night, a date of some importance (that importance being related to the tacit permission granted by adults to young adults to purchase and discharge fireworks), brought everyone out. as they gathered around the bonfire, those among them who had fireworks moved away from the larger group and began lighting their booty, or firing them, or shooting them... whatever one does to make a firework go, they did.


it was far less grand than the show held on the public beach. the lights didn't flare as high or as far or as brightly as the fireworks sent up by the town. but the baron, close to the fire and watching the yellow and orange light dance over not-her-family's faces, felt happy. between the heat from the fire and the enthusiasm of the boys and men gathered around the fireworks, the baron wondered why all family togetherness couldn't be this way: excited and silly, joyous and warm.

tucker plainly felt this contentment too, for the noise of the bonfire and fireworks, the voices of parents and children did not disturb him. he had stretched out in the sand at the husband's feet, asleep after a long and very good day.

july 4, the waking hours

eventually, the other cabins began to show signs of life: the baron and the husband caught the scent of freshly brewed coffee and heard murmured conversation across the wide, wide lawn. the three of them visited the husband's parents cabin, bummed some coffee off of them, then made their way down to the water. it was tucker's first time at a beach, and he was first tentative but was eventually cajoled into the water.

july 4 made good on its promise of sunshine, so the baron spent a fair part of the late morning/early afternoon splayed out on a towel on the lawn or reading her book in an adirondack chair (the baron loves to sun herself, and her concession to age and weight was a one piece bathing suit). tucker and the husband visited her occasionally, but spent most of their time wandering around the property, mingling with the children or playing in the waves. by early afternoon, the baron was ready for a change of scenery. tucker was, by this time, so comfortable with the water that he joined her at the end of the dock:


the afternoon passed quickly, and soon the baron retreated to the cabin to make dinner for the husband - being among the only vegetarians in the family, the baron and the husband made all their own meals (which, the baron will tell you, provided ample excuse for them to avoid mealtimes where everyone was present: vegetarianism, right for so many reasons). after cooking and eating, they made their way to the road where - as schroon lake tradition dictates, the annual july 4th parade was set to begin.

the parade is as you, reader, might expect - a small town affair - though the highlights included an army of chevettes (each with its own unique decorations, including one that had a tree truck attached to the chevette's roof) and a juggler riding a unicycle. lowlights included a group of young men and women, riding on a flatbed truck, dressed in tuxedos and gowns styled circa 1985 and wearing vacant smiles. high weirdness.

after the parade, everyone retreated to their various cabins to prepare for the night's activities: fireworks on the public beach. the baron, the husband, and tucker decided to cap their daylight hours off the same way they started them, with a walk around the town.

july 4, 2008, in the morning

the baron and the husband (and everyone else) stayed at the husband's uncle's property, a lakeside pseudo-resort ('pseudo' because you have to bring your own bedding and groceries - there's no room service there - but in terms of a getaway, you'd be hard pressed to find a more beautiful and picturesque place than schroon lake). the dawn on july 4 broke shiny and bright, promising a sunny day ahead. see chamlar in the morning, above.

the baron, the husband, and tucker started their independence day off with a walk around town, an enterprise that took all of 20 minutes. they passed the grocery store, stewart's ice cream shop/gas station/convenience store, and a number of small restaurants, cafes, and antique shops that had recently sprung up on the town's main drag. some photos from their walk...


evidently they weren't the only ones out for a stroll that morning.

the husband and tucker paused for a photo.

the three returned to their cabin in search of breakfast and coffee, wondering when the other cabins' occupants would begin to stir. it turned out no one else got up for a long while, which was fine by them: for the moment, july 4 was theirs alone.

july 3, 2008

recently, the baron and the husband traveled to upstate new york, to a town called schroon lake. the husband's entire (and very large) family meets there, on a yearly-ish basis, for the fourth of july. the husband's family typically goes for an entire week, though this year - as they had BOTH had recently started new jobs - the baron and the husband received special dispensation to shorten their time at schroon lake; they would only be there for three days. the husband's siblings bring their children, so the baron and the husband decided to bring one of theirs, too. it would be tucker bear's first time to a lake, his first time to new york, and his first time on vacation with mom and dad where he didn't have to share them with his brothers and sister. one of the best things about tucker is that he thinks everything is a potential adventure. in the photo below, tucker is in the cab of the husband's truck, waiting for the fun to happen.


the drive to schroon lake takes between 8-9 hours, so the husband and the baron spent most of july 3 driving. they left rather early in the morning (as evidenced by the husband, below, getting his coffee on) and aimed to be to the lake by 2 o'clock that afternoon.



the baron, distracted, took a self-portrait somewhere along the way.

the baron, the husband and tucker arrived to the lake in the early afternoon, paid homage to their hosts (and owners of the lake front property) and set to unpacking. soon after, they found the husband's parents and had drinks in hand. it wasn't too long after that - the handing around of wine - that the baron and the husband got an earful about the tensions of the week. this - the relating of the week's stories (including one about someone not saying hello to someone else in a timely enough manner, a broken toilet and a newly dug trench for pipes), punctuated with heavy sighs and pregnant pauses meant to indicate a (perceived or real) slight - sent the baron back to her cabin in search of something stronger than wine.

(the baron will take a moment here to say this: her family is 3 people. three. her mother, her brother, and herself. they used to be four, but then her father died, and her nuclear unit reshaped itself as 3. they are quiet - not timid, but not raucous either. they don't talk over each other, and anyway, even if they do, there's just 3 of them and 3 voices are not that hard to parse out from each other. at the house of the baron's mother, there isn't much in the way of simmering, decades-old tensions; being just 3, they've put those past misdeeds mostly behind them. at the husband's house, maybe because there's just so many of them (the husband has 5 siblings and 2 parents), sides are easily taken, lines are easily drawn in the sand, and just when something begins to scab over, some sibling will inevitably draw blood all over again. for the baron, integrating herself into the husband's family has been - and still is - kind of hard.)

the husband soon joined her in their cabin and made the baron's recent favorite drink - a bloody mary. the baron nursed her drink while she and the husband unpacked a little more, mixed with other members of his family, delighted in tucker (who was himself delighting in both the attention of children and the expanse of yard) and soaked in the beauty of the place. shortly, the husband and one of his brothers-in-law decided to head to the grocery store, leaving the baron alone in the cabin with tucker and a refreshed drink. in hindsight, perhaps this second bloody mary was a bad idea.

not too long after the husband's departure, the baron decided to make friendly with her in-laws, so she took her drink back to the husband's parents' cabin. she cannot remember what all was said, who was there, or if she participated at all - she has a feeling she was mostly sitting in the corner, chiming in when necessary, and trying to appear 'slightly', as opposed to 'very', drunk. ahem. when she saw the husband return with groceries, the baron and tucker excused themselves and headed for their cabin. her drink was gone. ahem. she found the husband and the groceries and said, "i don't feel good."

it was by this time 5 or 6 o'clock in the evening; the husband put the baron to bed and made her excuses to his family. she slept, though not restfully, and occasionally the husband would come in to check on her and to report on the evening's activities. at his 9 o'clock visit, the baron asked for the trash can, which was thankfully lined, and threw up two bloody marys, guacamole, and some corn chips into it. amazingly, after purging herself of the excess vodka, the baron felt much improved - so improved, in fact, that she joined everyone at the beach for the night's bonfire.

it was an adventure indeed.

tomato, one of many

a really charming thing happens around springtime in the baron's yard. the husband, after the last frost, takes compost from their bins and spreads it all over the vegetable beds. soon thereafter, seeds that have survived their time in the bin start sprouting -it's like a happy accident, a gift. invariably, every year they've made their own compost, the baron and the husband have had rogue tomato plants all over the yard. the baron was happy to move them from their sprouting places to pots or into beds, and so far it's working out just fine. this year they got a random melon plant, it may even be a pumpkin or a cucumber. only time will tell!