Well, it's really happening

[pameladean]

I should be doing something productive rather than writing this, but I am feeling very scattered. Eric has made the plane reservations. He and I and the cat are flying to San Francisco at the end of August, and I'll be home a week later, and he won't. Well, he'll be home, but he won't be here. I'm looking forward to having him show me his adopted state, and have mixed feelings of anticipation and terror at the notion of meeting friends and family of his. That part is basically all right; it's how strange things will be after that, I think, is making me so incapable of connected thought. Well, that and the great amount of stuff there is to do to prepare.

I've gotten in some book-glaring time. I glared at both of them, just to be fair. It wasn't terrifically productive.

In other minor matters, the long cool early summer tricked me into buying food to cook, and now it's getting hot again. I did make a really nice seitan dish yesterday, based on a pork recipe from Barbara Tropp's book on Chinese cooking (thank you, Daedala, for pointing it out to me). The original is pork and spinach. I didn't have enough spinach, so I added bok choy and snow peas. The original wants either Chinese chili sauce or crushed red peppers; not having either of those, I put in two fresh serrano peppers and a goodly dollop of sesame chili oil. That produced a miracle: David said the degree of heat was just right, and I was able to eat the dish with pleasure.

We're having a dry spell. Monarch butterflies are laying eggs on my milkweed. Daylilies, coreopsis, daisy fleabane, hosta, scabiosa are blooming. The phlox, both Starfire and David, is just starting, quite late for it, but looking vigorous. If it doesn't rain soon, I will have to water the lawn.

I am rereading Mary Renault's historical novels. It's been years since I could do that, and it is a great pleasure.

Pamela

Comments

[firecat]

Well, cool. If you have any free time while you're in SF, the OH and I would love to see you.

[pameladean]

I think perhaps not this time -- there seems to be a fair amount of family to meet -- but if all goes well, I should be back for a more leisurely visit or several. I apologize for my oddly compartmented brain, which failed to realize that your Bay Area was the same one I was going to visit, but I'm not sure it would have made much practical difference.

Pamela

[firecat]

Quite all right, I know how that goes. Maybe on another visit, then. Hope it goes well!

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Stef beat me to it (although I was going to say "while you're on the West Coast.)

I mean, I'm sure the last thing you'll feel like doing is visiting net.friends, but still ...

[pameladean]

Oh dear. See response above, to Firecat; it truly never entered my head that it was the same West Coast. I'm in a very interior state right now; I don't know how better to explain it.

Pamela

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Dear Pamela, it was only a wistful tease. I know you're going to be well and truly occupied (and preoccupied). We'll get to meet in due time, I have no doubt in the world.

[daedala.livejournal.com]

That's one of the best cookbooks ever. Did you ever look at the China Moon cookbook of hers? I suspect it would be tremendously overfussy for you -- even if a fussy-cooking sort of mood I amend her recipes -- but some of the stuff is very simplifiable and tasty. Such as the Sublime Eggplant Dip and noodle pillow things.

I've been meaning to ask -- what's the variety of the pink rose in your backyard? The climber that's taking over the everything.

[pameladean]

I haven't looked at the China Moon cookbook yet. I've barely cracked the other one, it seems. Must see what else is adaptable. But I'll bear the China Moon one in mind.

The rose is a Henry Kelsey. It's one of the Canadian Explorer series. It's the reddest one they had when I went looking for a hardy rose. Many more of them are pink. Henry Kelsey worked for the Hudson Bay Company and kept a voluminous journal, but his records were classified for years as business secrets.

Pamela

[coyotegoth.livejournal.com]

I just read The King Must Die for the first time, and reread The Persian Boy last fall. A great pleasure, indeed.

[davidgoldfarb.livejournal.com]

Just wanted to note yet another regular reader/lurker who lives in the SF Bay Area (but who understands). Anyway, we've met a couple of times at Minicon.