Category Archives: Uncategorized

Moving Is This Message

Posted by Tata on

Tata: Remember that time we were watching Trading Spaces and Hildi brought in cardboard furniture? I said, “Fire hazard” and you said, “I hope that’s industrial cardboard.”
Siobhan: Hildi is evil and I’m still afraid she might touch me. Remember that room with hay on the walls?
Tata: Even memory loss won’t protect me from that. So what’s this about high end cat furniture?
Siobhan: Buckle up, baby!

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

Cardboard cat holder: $320.

Cardboard cat holder: $49.

Cardboard cat holder: $54.

Here Despite Your Destination

Posted by Tata on

In the mornings now, I awaken with a jolt, some wild ride whirring to a bumpy stop. I have been far away, hunting for some treasure, some glittering clue to the nature of my travels, but I don’t know what it means. Sure, I open my eyes and pad off to the bathroom, but being awake is a distraction and I know somewhere I have work to do that waits until I fall asleep again. By lunchtime, I’d make to do lists if I had any idea where to go or what to do.

Time feels like it’s turned inside out. I’m off to bed, hoping I’m dressed for the ride.

Explain It Don’t Understand

Posted by Tata on

Spring arrives in dribs and drabs. Pete spent the afternoon setting up a raised bed in the backyard. We’ve gone back and forth on shapes, sizes and locations, but Pete chose a spot in the middle of the backyard and about a step from the plastic tent that passes for our greenhouse. Tomorrow, we’ll shovel in garden soil we saved from last year’s agricultural adventure and buckets of compost because woohoo, now it’s a party. It’s still too soon to plant vegetable seeds outside. The cold nights have not given way to consistent warm ones. This week, we’ll figure out how many plants the raised bed might accommodate, set up a weeper hose and decide what we’ll plant where. Sometimes, at this moment, I lose my mind and buy flats of tender seedlings. This type of decisive action has usually been followed by a month of sloth, during which our little seedlings went tits-up. I admit it: moving the water from the rain barrel to the plants was often too hard to do a gallon at a time before work so I let it go. So this year, we’re attaching weeper hoses to the rain barrels and threading them where stuff is. It’s a simple plan: on days I’m bicycling to work in good weather, I can open the valve on the rain barrel. Later, after Pete luxuriates in cozy bed, he can close the valve and go about his glamorous biz knowing the little sprouts are properly sauced. It’s not a great plan. Some folks will tell you not to use rain barrel water on your garden, but I’ll be blunt: we’re in New Jersey. Toxins rain from the sky, bounce off tar roofing and land on our lettuce. We’re freaking doomed – but arugula is a reason to live.

As for drab: I spent today cleaning out kitchen cabinets, because stuff growing in there is just gross.

Get No Kick In A Plane

Posted by Tata on

Horoscopically speaking, chaos reigns today. Perhaps that explains why my cats appear to be stalking the stove. Of course, they’re not actually stalking the stove, but chaos will surely reign in my house if mice have taken up residence in my kitchen. Oh the beauty of Nature! Oh the ugliness of sweeping up the mangled corpses of tiny interlopers. That story is sure to end well!

Pete’s had a cold all week. My tax refund arrived so I paid bills and this week, I’ll buy savings bonds for all the kids in my family. Years ago, when my sisters and brother started adding children to the fold at the same time I was forgetting things like my own name I gave up on buying gifts and skipped straight to two savings bonds apiece for each kid every year: for a birthday and Christmas. Sure, I look like a fuddyduddy in the here and now. Can’t be helped! Someday, though, I’m going to like a righteous old broad who knew college kids gotta eat.

You heard me: in my crystal ball, I see my blood relatives tipping the pizza guy. He probably hasn’t been born yet.

Anyway, in March and early April, I pay the bills I couldn’t afford if they came during a different season. Insurances. AAA. Costco membership. It’s not glamorous like a big vacation or stupid like blowing it in Atlantic City, but this annual ritual allows me to live a relatively stable life on a tiny state job paycheck. Chaos happens. Stability takes some work.

And There’s Gonna Be Trouble

Posted by Tata on

Polenta mix and friends

If you’ve been hanging around this joint for more than a few minutes you may recall I prefer to buy locally grown or made food and like to keep work in the family. If you’re a fantastic divorce lawyer, I have a blond sister you can date, which may be important later because one of my other sisters either is or is not having an affair. Needless to say, any way around it, good organic food will be best for everyone.

At the health food store, Pete and I found the de la Estancia Organic Polenta and gave it a try. At $4.59 per pound, it wasn’t cheap. I boiled stock, added spices and herbs, skimmed out bay leaves and peppercorns and poured in almost the whole bag of polenta. The mixture thickened almost immediately. I mixed in some pats of butter until the polenta had a nice sheen and turned the whole thing out into an oiled glass casserole dish to form. The result was a polenta with fantastic depth of flavor, a creamy texture and an aroma like a lovely old memory. Since then, I’ve used this mix to make polenta four different ways, with and without parmesan, with and without milk, with and without yogurt, with and without stock. Each time, the polenta delivered. It’s so good I almost don’t care that it’s imported from Argentina.

Well…I do care and wish it came from the other side of town. I’m going to keep looking for a local source. If you don’t, de la Estancia is the really good stuff.