spynotes ::
  October 21, 2006
The Good Life

We had a visit yesterday from the Empire Carpet guy, who, alas, was not the same Empire Carpet guy you see on TV (in the Chicago area, at least; New Yorkers, Empire Carpet ads are sort of our local version of Crazy Eddie or Mount Airy Lodge � ads that run so frequently you can quote them verbatim and with production values so low that you want to scream, either with horror or hysterics), but he was still a very nice guy and he gave AJ not one, but two Empire Carpet Man bobbleheads, one for him and one for �his girlfriend,� The Girl Next Door, who was playing over here for a while. Maybe we�ll even get some flooring out of the deal. Of course, we have to decide we want to part with a lot of dollars first. Maybe we can hawk our bobbleheads on Eb@y to raise some funds.

On the positive side of the financial picture, I�m in the midst of my annual fall self-sufficiency campaign. When I was growing up in London, our family used to watch a show called The Good Life (it later aired stateside on PBS under the title, �The Good Neighbors�). The sitcom followed the lives of a couple who moved to a London suburb in an attempt to live off the grid. The created a farm out of their suburban lot. The comedy part came in when they interacted with their upper-crusty next-door neighbors who weren�t partial to lawns mowed by goats or roosters as alarm clocks. More than Martha Stewart, this is the show I think of when I suddenly have the urge to do everything myself, as seems to happen every fall.

This weekend is shaping up to be nine kinds of crazy (nine!). I have to write and record the examples for my students� midterm quiz, which they�ll be taking on Tuesday. Is the term really halfway over already? This is the insanity of the quarter system: it seems like as soon as you get to know everybody, the class is over. I have finally figured out how to record excerpts of CD tracks in iTunes for what continues to be known as the �needle drop� test, despite the demise of technology that makes use of needles or dropping, and I am ridiculously pleased with myself. I also need to scare up a few recordings for my second lecture next week.

Before dinner last night, I took a grocery bag with me on my walk in the woods and came home with eight pounds of osage oranges. Last year they didn�t fall to the ground until November, but this year I have enough to fill several bowls and vases before Halloween. I love their chartreuse color, their brain-like texture and their fruity smell that every year transports me to childhood when we�d hurl rotten brainfruit at each other in the name of sport.

And then my cousin and family are coming over this afternoon. We originally invited them over to discuss the upcoming family reunion that we were supposed to be cohosting this summer, but apparently the reunion has moved elsewhere so now we�re not sure what we�re going to talk about. Perhaps about the flaming burning bush by the screen porch or the two maples � one yellow, one orange � lighting up the far side of the yard. Or maybe about the horses, who we can see once more through the increasingly bare branches of the trees along the stream. Or maybe we�ll just stuff our faces with lasagna. There�s a pan of tomato sauce, made with tomatoes and basil rescued from the garden before frost, cooling on the stove. The filling will make use of The Parsley that Ate Chicago, which is currently trying to swallow the kitchen sink, but hopefully will be less obese after I get through with lunch.

And finally, I need to finish AJ�s Halloween costume. The pants to his skeleton suit are done, or mostly so � the right corner of the pelvis keeps coming unstuck, so I may have to break out a needle and thread. But I still need to cut out and iron on the bones for the shirt. And that�s a lot of bones: ribs, vertebrae, arms, collar bone. I�d better get busy.

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