Sunday I returned to the stove and lived down the black beans incident with a pot of damn fine pasta alla puttanesca (”ho sauce” is my working translation), finally making a dent in the mountain of tomatoes gathered on the counter. It was spicy and sassy and good enough to jar and sell at market, I say!

I’d promised Mum a photo of my crazy new flamenco apron, which I donned on this occasion. Mum’s Bretonne-Sevillana sister Christine sent one each to me and my sister over the summer. Merci beaucoup, Christine! Grosses bises de Oregon!

Ten years ago I visited Christine during Semana Santa and fell totally in love with Sevilla. I’ve vowed one day to return for both Fiestas de Primavera and dance flamenco in full costume…

Last week Scott and I went on a tour of Indiana and Ohio, during which we had the pleasure of reuniting with familiar souls and getting acquainted with new folks too. Naughty Northwest Airlines waffled on their scheduled red-eye out of PDX, so we missed our first day of vacation just trying to get there (and it was to include a blueberry pancake brunch by Grammie—no six-dollar meal voucher is gonna replace that!) My dear friend Kelly improvised a very late airport pickup, and Grammie sent us off with homemade gingersnaps instead (while Grandpa supplied the fresh fruit and reading material in the form of a garden supply catalog and an Earthjustice pamphlet).

First stop was Bloomington, home of my alma mater IU and Scott’s friends Sandy and Ben. I hadn’t been back to Bloomington since I graduated and moved away west. Even when I lived there I apparently had my head in a textbook, a movie, or a cloud all the time, because I’d never really experienced two of Scott’s favorite haunts—Bloomington Bagel Company and Sahara Mart—and they were right under my nose.

In this way, the day in Bloomington, strolling around the southeast corner of campus and meandering between 2nd Street and Kirkwood Avenue, was a delightful mix of nostalgia and discovery. Scott, Ben, and Sandy indulged me in a walk past the two nondescript 2nd Street apartments I inhabited as a student on our way to visit Sahara Mart. Seeing the apartments gave me a “You’ve come a long way, baby” kind of feeling; meeting the mart was more like “How could I have missed this? What the hell was wrong with me?” The olive bar and the brew sanctuary totally lived up to Scott’s hype, and at checkout, between the tin of Illy caffé and the tub of rose-petal lemon-peel kalamatas, I implored the owner Javad to relocate to Corvallis. (And I wasn’t kidding. Dude’s elevated groceries to a fine art.)

On campus I was briefly amused by the bizarre statue of Mr. IU, Herman B Wells, (erected after my time), and I relished the opportunity to enter new Memorial Union territory on Scott’s special tour of the tower toilet. My companions again indulged my nostalgia with a pass through Ballantine Hall, practically my second home as a student.

Other Bloomington highlights: smoothies at Soma (bicycle art in the stairwell up to Laughing Planet), dinner at Shanti (loony wait staff), breakfast at the BBC (bagel-making espionage), all preceded by Sandy’s wonderful waffle brunch. Most memorable moment: chillin’ to the mesmerizing light show of candles, fireflies, and stars (even a shooting star!) on Ben and Sandy’s deck.

On to the outskirts of Columbus, Ohio, where my mum’s family convened in honor of cousin James’s high school graduation. I’ve enjoyed following James through the years, watching him come into his own as a talented volleyball player, social activist, rock star…

And it’s a thing of beauty: We paid up front for a weekly box of farm-fresh veg, assembled for us and delivered every Tuesday evening, today through October, to a rendezvous conveniently located between work and home. Truly this program is a boon to two dedicated herbivores who nonetheless often struggle to eat enough veg (chips and salsa and pasta and s’mores, sure) and who experience streaks of laziness and indecision. No more feeling guilty or deprived when we sleep in and miss the Saturday farmers’ market (me). No more crippling indecision (among the market hordes) about what to buy when we actually do make it there (Scott). No more crippling indecision about what to make at all (me). It’s monster salad time, baby!

Yeah, I’m still a little delirious from the heat. Here’s my portrait of our inaugural plunder: new potatoes, white satin carrots, Walla Walla and baby onions, arugula, Swiss chard, zucchini, cilantro, snap peas, cucumber, Siletz tomatoes, and blueberries. Those are poblanos and jalapeños (from local grocer Richey’s) in the pan, soon to be quesadilla-fied and topped with guacamole.

The celebrations reach back to lucky Friday the 13th, when Scott and I saw The Host at the Darkside. This wild Korean film is like a monster movie or a disaster flick laced with family slapstick, genre spoofs, political satire, and probably a bunch of juicy references I didn’t even pick up on… It’s the best new movie I’ve seen in ages. I laughed! I cried! I got into it! I’m alive! You all go see it now and then let’s meet for coffee and dessert to discuss, hmm? Dennis, who brought it to my attention and insisted that we see it, has more than made up for his endorsement of Pan’s Labyrinth. Giant sewer-monster thanks to you, Dennis!

Saturday, ahh. Pulling weeds awhile, and then chillin’ in the sunshine, legs stretched out in the grass, lazily reading a Ken Kesey book with Maddy at my side. Saturnight, Scott built a fire in our new back porch fire bowl, and we huddled close to the heat, mesmerized by the light—so relaxing!—and lazily roasted marshmallows. Maddy lay just beyond the circle of light, guarding the pack.

Sunday, an unabashed return to gastronomic pleasure! Yes, folks, I will gladly rise before 7:00 and cycle almost 10 miles for a farm-fresh omelette and all-you-can-eat pastry buffet. We cycled home gingerly, rested, digested, and then headed out to India Night for dinner and song and dance generously offered by the OSU Indian Students Association.

And did the beauty end there? No, sirree! Monday was fun-day, folks, because after work, Scott and I escaped to Portland in the Barry-mobile for a fabulous sushi dinner with his friends and Ted Leo and the Pharmacists at the Hawthorne Theatre. The unbelievably amazing music (and energy!), the intimate grittiness of the venue, the city at night… Vision of ultimate coolness—distant dream of my small-town teenage years—realized.

One last celebration, not tied to any particular day, of the mundane and the sublime in the kitchen. I’ve freshened up our old dishwasher (Eek! 1994 is old?) and started using it to alleviate the oppressive countertop cluttering of dirty dishes. (Emily, I dedicate my dishwasher campaign to you.) And the sublime—Scott standing at the stove crafting curry for chickpeas, the scent of the freshly ground cumin and coriander hitting the hot cast iron!

Scott came to the rescue with a bottle of nuclear pink pepperminty slime-dicine, and yesterday I managed to choke down (and keep down) a few glasses of Cran-Raspberry, a small bowl of granola, and six stale water crackers. Still bereft of all epicurean desires, I pulled Twentieth Century Eightball off my bookshelf and burrowed into the sofa to enjoy the misanthropic pornography of Daniel Clowes. Late in the afternoon, I got the crazy notion to do something useful and decided to cut the grass. So when Scott wasn’t looking, I hauled our new old reel mower out of the shed and set to work. Maddy ran wide circles around me as I staggered across the back lawn, stopping to catch my breath and steady myself after each pass. Not the bliss of before.

The good news is that I ate a full plate of peas and pasta for supper (though sadly recoiled at Scott’s objectively wonderful garlic sauté) and Inland Empire is playing at 3:00 and 6:40 today. Depending on how lunch goes, I may just be ready to take it on.

“This is a song with a lot of weather in it, and I don’t know about you, but I’m a sucker for weather.” -Tom Waits, November 2004 (listen from 04:55)

So! Moving right along.

Yesterday was cold and dry, and I tried to spend the daylight hours outside. Scott and I headed downtown to the last outdoor farmers market of the season. I bought a pair of poblano peppers because they’re so damn cute and quite tasty in quesadillas. At one of the apple stands, Scott picked out a bunch of Stayman Winesaps and Mutsus, and I cleaned up on pippins. Time again to try my hand at dumplings.

Back home we turned the dogs out to romp and rummage and turned our attentions to the garden. During the week some mad winds had blown the tin roof off our little porch shelter thing and stripped the remaining foliage off our two maples. So while Scott hit the roofs, collecting and stowing the tin sheets and scooping out the gutters on the house, I raked the maple leaves into a gorgeous pile by our new compost bin behind the greenhouse. (Okay, okay. It’s not as idyllic as it sounds or appears. That photo shows the garden in summer before we bought it. The greenhouse currently sits empty, as we haven’t actually moved in to it yet, and the plants are rather soggy and brown these days. But I’m really proud of our leaf pile.)

Gordon snacked on some gutter gunk before I chased him inside. Maddy obsessed over cat tracks in the bushes until I chased her inside too. She smelled, quite pleasantly, of mint and rosemary!

I took a break from raking and climbed up the rickety ladder, stretched out on my back on top of our house, spied into the neighbors’ gardens, felt a little lighter.

I was apparently too flustered by this happy opportunity to pack for it properly, and I showed up spectacularly unprepared, without a light, a lighter, or bug dope. Or marshmallows. The cousins took care of me.

Mum and I cooked our oats and dates on a backpacking stove, and when the mosquitoes crashed our evening meals, we huddled together with the cousins (all six people, three dogs) in their pop-up camper. Andrew and Mum and I roasted marshmallows over the campfire while James strummed us a lovely serenade on his guitar. I slept well in the tent, a dog on my face, another on my legs, and Gordon and Mum’s serenade of snores.

Snowbanks were scaled. Mountain air was inhaled. Trees were hugged. The lake was admired from many different angles. Photographs were taken.

By the time we returned to Corvallis to feast on Scott’s waffles (Scoffles?) – carbohydrates fit to usher in the weekend of the Northwest Tandem Rally – that twitch in my left eye had completely faded.

Paneer! Gulab jamun! And Bollywood! Yes, kids, dreams really do come true.

Meanwhile, before I go and gorge myself on all the goodies Devi has to offer, it’s perhaps time again to indulge in some tasty bites of Bombay TV, all thanks to lovely L. Claude. Bollywood, here I come!

Four jobs I have had in my life:
1. Corn detassler (I lasted a whopping 10 days.)
2. Hardware store cashier
3. Italian language instructor
4. Closed captions and DVD subtitles editor

Four movies I would watch over and over:
1. Down by Law
2. A Clockwork Orange
3. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
4. Mononoke Hime

Four places I have lived:
1. Bloomington, Indiana
2. Bologna, Italy
3. Berkeley, California
4. Los Angeles, California

Four TV shows I love to watch:
1. The Simpsons
2. South Park
3. Twin Peaks
4. Choice snippets of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report courtesy Video Dog

Four places I have been on vacation:
1. New York City
2. New Zealand
3. Spain (Barcelona and beautiful Andalucia)
4. Minnesota

Four Web sites I visit daily:
1. Salon
2. Library Link of the Day
3. Anu Garg’s A.Word.A.Day
4. Merriam-Webster

Four of my favorite foods:
1. Avocados
2. “Cheese, Gromit!”
3. Kalamata olives
4. Mama’s Hot Tamales

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. At the Metro, having a margarita with Dil– (Uh, sorry! I recently watched The Crying Game again after so many years… Ooh! Ooh, wait! Can I change my answers to the second question?) How about watching a favorite old film with a new friend or a fresh film with an old friend? Any combination of friends and films, really.
2. With Scott, riding across Sicily on his tandem bicycle.
3. On tour with The Ditty Bops
4. Balasana

Four friends I am tagging that I think will respond (on their blogs or here in comments):
1. My sister Em, even though I already know all her answers. (That oughta provoke her! )
2. Em’s Michael
3. Scott (Come back to us, Thought Distillery! We’re parched!)
4. Um, L. Claude? Humor me?
5. Surprise me!