Wednesday, November 29, 2006

*Belated Mama Megglesworth News*

Lovely Megs with beautiful babies.

If any of you were wondering if and when baby Megglesworth hatched, YES, yes, he did! Ducky was born November 10th, a happy, healthy, incredibly handsome 9lb boy with very good instincts for feeding and great taste in parents!

I will try to post a more current photo sometime soon, but in the meantime, above is one of Mama with baby Ducky and niece Shannon, and below is one of me making Ducky grumble with the cashmere baby hat that I made for him, which turned out a bit snug on his little noggin. (I made one that fit much better the next day...)

Ducky in a bunny hat.

Photographs I Didn't Take

The farm: (from l to r) Dairy barn, house, horse barn, garage, chicken coop, granary. Hidden from view are the summer kitchen, pump house, and cottage. None of the outbuildings are occupied these days by anything larger than a cat.


So. I carried my camera with me through all of the Thanksgiving travel, from the farm to Mom's house to home to my aunt's for a wedding shower that Sunday, and in the end, I only really had two pictures to show for it. Even more kooky, neither of the pix are of people!

What about the Thanksgiving table at the farm, laden with platters of turkey, bowls of mashed potatoes, broccoli with cheese, green salad resplendent with avocado, red onion, pea pods, and more? Two types of homemade cranberry relish (no can-shaped jelly here!), hard rolls, gravy—I'm sure I'm forgetting something. That table groaned with delicious offerings. What about the picture of me, Scooby, four of my sisters, and my neice, Petunia, bookended by Papa and Sue-bee, gathered around the table in thanks for all of our good fortune this year? What about Frank, the geriatric Jack Russel, sharking around under the table for dropped morsels and hand outs? Certainly I should have snapped a shot of the dessert spread, complete with pumpkin pie, buttermilk pie, and two types of fudge (which Scooby made just for the occasion.) I should have captured an image of Sue-bee helping me search for agates as we took a walk down the dirt road to the north 40 and back after dinner. Or the tracks on the side of the road indicating that at least one of the dairy cattle down the way had gone on the lam.

Later, at Mom's, couldn't I have gotten a photo of Mom and Scooby playing a whimsical game of hang-man? A shot of the gigantic, delicious, buttery bowl of popcorn we snacked on, still full from Thanksgiving gorging? No, instead I took a pic of Zoe-kitty looking a little skanky after a few hits of catnip. All I can say, by way of explanation, is that I was having quite a lot of fun in the moment, surrounded by loved ones and indulged with amazing meals, and I didn't care to step back and be an observer, even for a minute.
Zoe looking tweaky.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Who wouldn't love a thrift gift?

You never know what you'll find at a thrift store.

I love thrift stores. Seriously. I can spend ridiculous amounts of time sifting through books and purses and racks of sweaters, looking for that one great find: the unique skirt or bizarre kitchen gadget. It also makes me feel good to recycle/reuse something rather than buying new. Plus, it's kind to my student budget, leaving me more money for important things like haircuts and massages. Sometimes I find something incredible, most often nothing great. Lately I've been sweater hunting. (It is, after all, winter in Minnesota, though we don't have any snow here in Minneapolis.) Today I visited Savers and found three cashmere turtlenecks from Neiman Marcus, all in great shape, for $6.99 apiece. Two of them were black, and one was green. I had no choice but to buy all three. I'm thinking that I might give one of the black sweaters to Madilly or maybe B'lou. I know that neither would mind that it was thrifted. It got me thinking. Wouldn't it be kind of cool to do a thrift Christmas? Think of the great stuff you could find! You could either set out to find the nicest stuff possible, like the $298 Coach purse that I bought for $15 awhile back, or you could look for something fun, like the "Big Maze" game that I have hanging in my kitchen. It certainly wouldn't be the same thing that everyone else was getting. Sure, it might take more time than just visiting the mall, but it would also be more personal. Just an idea.
The Big Maze game on my kitchen wall.

The Last Supper as a mirror. Nice.

This down-on-her-luck angel was most likely a tree-topper.

Am I the only one who thinks the Eiffel Tower looks awfully happy to see the Arc de Triumph?

Everything on this chair was thrifted. In fact, I bought the chair at Goodwill in 1999.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Counter Intelligence



Our kitty, Django, has some habits that I don't admire. Chief among these is his predilection for bringing live rodents into the house through the dog door, even though I hear we're supposed to feel flattered. (Or, as I have also heard, pitied, since it's obvious to him that we have really pathetic hunting skills. Thus he is helping us practice by bringing half-dead chipmunks for us to chase around the basement.)
In addition to his career as a rodent killing machine, Django excels at waking up house guests by squeezing his paw under the bedroom door and rattling it, jumping onto my back as I am bent over weeding the garden, and lolling around on the kitchen counters. To be honest, the guest-waking and back pouncing are kind of funny and clever. I don't mind them too much. The counter-lolling, however, REALLY bothers me—especially when he comes into the house from doing god only knows whatoutside and tracks muddy(!) pawprints over each of the three counter surfaces. Not only that: I caught him licking the seasoning oil off the cast iron skillet last week. Ish. And today, in the wake of another of Scooby's dessert-creation sprees (milk & white chocolate swirl fudge...) I walked into the kitchen to be presented with this:

I was not surprised to find out the Django likes sweetened condensed milk.

Contemplating a coffee chaser for his sweet treat.