Mahgah

I just gave Percy a dental bone. He feels these every-few-days treats are the ultimate win, and so plays a sweet game of hiding them from himself until his anticipation is so great that he "finds" and happily devours it.

Right now, he's in the hide phase; I know because I get to sleep in the basement tonight and can hear Percy's long-claw paws prancing excitedly on the floor above. I hear the bone drop on occasion. It's then picked up and ferried to the next hiding spot. Soon he'll claim his prize. 

Bless his simple heart. 

This morning, I donned a dress, saw writer-group friends, laughed happily and welcomed the boys home. 

Lisa, me, Kristi

I made another plum tart because I surely didn't want to compost abandoned Italian plums but also I finished the last one yesterday and need to get my fill before plum season 2015 ends.  

Something is/might be seriously wrong with me.

I am, admittedly, in the thick of my annual p.t. obsession, but this year realize that it coincides neatly with the boys still being home on summer break.  

Interesting. If by interesting I mean, duh; I'm stress-cooking to beat sixty.  

Many a friend contacted me today, secretly and front-door-gone openly, about having also cried yesterday and/or feeling equally desperate for their offspring to go the eff back to the village known as school. 

Three more days, friends. Three.more.days. Would anyone care if I spent the next few like this? 

In the meantime, I'm going to attempt to excise the following tunes from the jingle-lovin' bit of my brain:

•A Pug and a Patty (an original by Oliver; about Percy stealing a chicken patty); 

•The (stupid fucking) Gummy Bear song;

•"Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" by Jefferson Starship which A) never gets old but B) is tough to excise and sometimes you want just that and C) played a fantastic supporting role in The Skeleton Twins which A) made me love Bill Hader even more (um, Stefon!) and B) was poignant in the ways those sorts of films usually try but fail to be. 

Throw-out Thursday

I find myself quite glum this afternoon, though it's not been a bad day or even a bad week. Right now, in fact, I'm on my comfy couch, a pot of Lady Grey on the side table next to me, keeping warm under the tea cozy I eagerly bought at Windsor Castle because tea cozys are an item ludicrously hard to come by in the States. Isn't this one charming?

I'm spittin-fed-up with the grand douchebags of America, Orange Trump and Kanye Hubris; repulsed by Kim Davis and her gross bigotry (thank goodness she was just held in contempt of court and remanded to feds); sick of stupid arguments by many Republicans and Ohioans about the affront it is to President McKinley to rename Mount McKinley Denali, not least because Pres McK never visited Mount McKinley, and actual Alaskans are in favor of the switch; exhausted by images and stories of migrants dying horrible deaths as they desperately try to get to places where they can simply live safely and feed their families; and despondent over the partisan political ugliness that is not only hurting Americans but also making us look pretty silly abroad.

But I'm also past ready to break up with summer. It's been a good one, but it needs to wrap itself terminally shut pronto. I'm hangdog tired, hot, and desperate for a routine.

Jack has been in Colorado with my father-in-law since Tuesday. They enjoy hiking together so decided to go big and climb the last 4,000+ feet of Mt. Elbert this week. I'm so grateful that our boys have such involved, loving grandparents, and I'm thrilled for Jack that he had this opportunity. After yesterday's summit, they celebrated with dinner at a saloon in Leadville. I'll see my climber tomorrow.

Jack atop Mt. Elbert; no, I don't know what's all around his mouth.

Oliver and I have, in the past twenty-four hours, painted Halloween-themed items at a local pottery studio, seen the Shaun the Sheep movie, been to the bookstore, read, built, playdated, lunch dated, snuggled, talked ad infinitum about his many ideas for Halloween costumes, obtained a horcrux locket (Harry Potter, y'all), and negotiated just how many pictures of each thing he eats he can take with my phone before said eating commences: I found 19 of one slice of cinnamon bread from this morning, for example.

We have had such a marvelous time together, but he is, mercifully, now at my mother-in-law's house which is why I'm finally able to just sit my sad ass on the couch and drink tea uninterrupted by anything but Percy's revolting new habit of continuously digging in his ears with his back paw claws and then licking those like they're popsicles. 

For a variety of reasons, I today drove up and down northwest DC twice, into and out of Maryland and later to Virginia before trying to return home three hours later but discovering that I was out of gas. I cried for a full twenty minutes to an incredibly loving friend who just gets it. 

Who gets that while I'm grateful for our summer, the fabulous travel opportunities we've had, my in-laws, and all that jazz, I'm so damn tired that all I could do was weep. And I'm gonna tell y'all, it felt good. 

The older I get, the less I cry. By and large that's a pretty good trajectory, but it's also a definite result of feeling more and more that most people don't want to hear about the dregs of anything. And that, like the seemingly complete lack of real bipartisan conversation anywhere, is an enormous loss for everyone.

Percy has given up on his clawsicles, we finally got a bit of rain, and my tea is still warm. My cortisol level has subsided as I bask in this quietude that's mine for a couple hours more. I'm going to read my book, All the Light We Cannot See (which is fabulous and I am dreading the fact that if I keep reading, the story will end), and I'm going to breathe deeply and accept that we have four more days of "break" and will need to just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Look what I saw today: if this can happen, well, onward ho! 

no filter!

What you should be doing with your Sungolds

If you've been reading Em-i-lis for at least a year, you might know that I adore tomatoes. Raw, in sandwiches and tarts, with peaches, in savory jams, cooked into beautiful sauces for pasta, canned for later use. 

Basically, I'm Forrest Gump's shrimpin' friend, Bubba, or Christopher Guest's nut-aficionado character in Best In Show, with tomatoes.

As an aside, y'all have to watch this clip. Sends me to the floor in peals of laughter every.damn.time. Harlan Pepper, god bless you. HAH!

But back to Sungolds. Possibly, they are my favorite tomato. At the least, they are my favorite small type. I love their golden orange hue, their perfect sweet tang and the way you can eat them hand over fist and never tire.

all delicious, but the bright orange Sungolds are my favorite.

Several summers back, I was heavily into anchovy-garlic anything and one evening cooked some Sungolds over low heat with anchovies, garlic, capers, parsley and olive oil. The sauce ingredients melted together in the most divine, sticky, unctuous way, and the tomatoes broke down just enough to add pleasurably to the mix but also maintain a distinct texture and standing. 

lusty sungold love

Lusty Sungold Love was born, and I have found that the very best way to enjoy this dish is spooned atop toasted baguette slathered with fresh ricotta. Each bite makes you pause. Maybe you'll close your eyes or sigh a small, contented "aah." And then you'll reach for another slice of bread, the bowl of ricotta and the spoon dunked in the lusty tomatoes. And you'll start again and enjoy it just the same.