forest hill market, this week

So, thanks to some friends and neighbors, I barely made it to the market this week. It was boiling hot, and the mojitos from the night made for a woozy wake-up. The little bit of fruit and yogurt before leaving certainly didn't cut it, and I had to give in to the urge to try some of the barbecue sold at the market.

There are two such vendors. One is a guy who has a fairly serious tent and truck set up, complete with a generator to run everything. He sold North Carolina-style. The other pitmaster pulls a large smoker behind a gray volvo wagon, circa 1990. He made Texas-style, which should prick the ears of any BBQ-loving NPR listeners. Despite a gift of the gab, he kept the line moving and recognized repeat customers. After a taste of his brisket and a sausage, I can report that it was some of the best barbecue I've tasted. Next week, I'll have to try more—my apologies to my vegetarian/vegan friends.

In the meantime, the market report this week is as follows...

• coffee beans
  
• yard-long beans , which are purple
  
• sweet red peppers
  
• four kinds of tomatoes
  
• cucumbers
  
• cantalope
  
• basil (and the pesto is already made)
  
• shiitake mushrooms
  
• blueberries (close to the end of the season for these)
  
• chorizo
  
• peaches
  
• gnocchi
  
• rosemary and onion focaccia (tasty, but a bit dry)

The only regret? I should have bought butter.

Friday Fun

This is to political songs as "Superbowl Shuffle" was to sports anthems.



Somewhere, quietly, Woody Guthrie is weeping.

wow

Rush on the Colbert Report. Playing "Tom Sawyer." These guys can still tear it up.

The video is up now. Song starts at 5:26...

coney, the beginning

Briefly put, this diagram from 1885 is where my obsession with Coney Island and elephants began:



The idea that someone would build a hotel in the shape of an elephant blew my mind. A brief intimation I later found—and hopefully will be able to dig up in more detail for the Topsy blog—suggested that "going to see the Elephant" was a euphemism for salacious fun. Then again, Coney continues to be a struggling example of salacious fun.

(Image from the New York Public Library.)

notes for my therapist, or a variation on a short story I once wrote, also known as the opposite of life-hacking

"See, here's how it works," I start.

"Here's how what works?" you ask.

"It. The whole kit and kaboodle. See, I'm really into compound descriptions right now—higgledy-piggledy and sixes and sevens. All of it," I say. "It's kind of a spiral that works like this: something dredges up a bunch of emotions or anxieties I thought I had put away—say, residual stuff from the shooting, feelings about divorce, you name it—and those feelings seed fears and anxieties and sometimes anger that I thought had gone away. My answer then is to distract myself in whatever way I can until all that's left for me to do is to pass out for a few fitful hours at night. Because I'm avoiding my own physical (and emotional) space, however, the random detritus of life piles up, and I'm left with a physical space that is as disorganized as my mental space. That, in turn, feeds my other anxieties and makes me angry with myself so that it's that much harder to pull things back into order."

"You're overwhelmed, in other words."

"Kind of. I do it to myself. It's what I've done for most of the past year or so, and I thought I was through with it."

"And you're not."

"Apparently not."

ads that will make you laugh, cry, and everything in between -- all with added features and fried chicken

When Brian posted this haunting video of David Hasselhof over at Incertus, I added a nice little commercial link in the comments. Brian has since responded with a classic local commercial of his own. To that end, I add one of the classic television ads of all time. All this for just...



But wait, there's more!

Monday Fun

I'm a dad. I'm a Mac user. I like Feist, and I love this clip from Sesame Street...

oy.

If I'm going to keep up with this blog over weekends, apparently I'm going to have to find a way to connect from the pool. At least for the rest of the summer, that seems to be where we're going to be spending nearly all waking hours on weekends and occasional weekday evenings. This is not a complaint, mind you, and might even be a bit of hyperbole.

One question, though: why in the hell did I think it was a good idea to try to do flips off the diving board yesterday? My nose is still smarting from the face-first smack I took on the first attempt. Furthermore, why did I agree to the challenge to learn how to do a real flip by the end of the summer?

Apparently, masochism and fun go hand-in-hand.

the market haul

Last night, Banana and I hung at our pool for Friday Movie Night. It was a late night, and had Banana so exhausted she slept past nine this morning. Despite that and despite the fact that we got to Forest Hill more than an hour later than usual, we picked a pretty decent haul.

• Honeydew melon
  
• a small, very fragrant cantalope
  
• blackberries
  
• baby carrots
  
• white peaches
  
• corn
  
• green beans
  
• green peppers
  
• gold cherry tomatoes
  
• yellow heirloom tomatoes
  
• cucumbers
  
• basil
  
• chevre
  
• pork chops
  
• coffee beans

Unfortunately, I neglected to pick up eggs. In any case, the salad I made for lunch was simple and amazing--cucumbers, tomatoes, basil, carrots, olives, the last of the feta I'd picked up a couple weeks ago, and a little olive oil and balsamic.

It was a muggy, warm morning, but I still remain amazed at how much the market grows. New farms and craft vendors arrive each week, and the crowds remain steady. There is one vendor that seems to be causing a bit of rumbling, however. They carry produce that is past or a little early for the season, suggesting that they are sourcing their wares, possibly from outside Virginia, rather than growing themselves. It will be interesting to see whether the rumblings grow louder. (And, yes, I've left the specifics out intentionally.)

Friday Fun

Thanks to John for introducing me to this one last week. The satire is pretty scathing and pretty brilliant. Definitely not one to watch with the kids around...

Stupid Girls - Pink | Music Videos | SPIKE.com

(with apologies for the lead-in ad.)

truisms

I've never really looked to Chris Rock for the perfect description of life. This morning, however, there was a piece in the Times-Dispatch about his show this evening that caught my attention. Part of the article covered his role as a father and he made this remark about bringing his daughters on tour with him:

"They save you from your miserable self. It's true. It's the best way to sum it up. You've got to analyze every move you make. There's nothing like kids to get you out of you."

It's a remarkably accurate, true assessment. There is nothing quite like a child's question or a laugh to make petty anxieties of daily life seem utterly trivial. And there is nothing like a child's presence to crowd out the troubling silences that creep in when you only have yourself to worry about.

exploding ale!

Phin & Matt's Extraordinary Ale was a new find at Once Upon A Vine. The brewery is in southwest New York state, and it seemed like a promising find. On opening the first bottle, however, it seemed more like a homebrew that had escaped the lab. The first bottle literally exploded with foam when I tried to take a sip. Pouring the beer as an alternative took more than ten minutes because each short pour brought out the liveliest head I've seen since a batch of my own homebrew got a little too carbonated. I tried contacting the brewery, but their website lacks contact information. The beer itself is good, but it tastes a little yeasty, like something went just a little off in the fermentation tanks or in the bottling. You'd think I would have returned it after testing a couple of bottles, but the store is off my regular route, so I'll just tough my way through this batch.

tasteee

So that BBQ or Teriyaki chicken you ordered at that restaurant supplied by Sysco the other day was sooooo tasty, wasn't it? But did you know it was chicken parts formed to look like real chicken breasts. ("Unique 3-D technology gives you the look and texture of a solid muscle chicken breast, at a fraction of the cost.") I'll have to dig a little further here to see what other gems of industrial food technology I can find. Eat up!

(picked up from Consumerist)

the pathetic political state of our nation

I could add more and might later, but for now, this should suffice:



And then there's this.

Friday Fun (before Friday is gone)

Thanks to Carolyn for this new music tip...

bloggin' the Fourth, pt. 2

So, we find ourselves down at Edgewater for the annual party. The usual band is playing, minus their full set of amplifiers. It was quieter, but nice to see them roving about.


As the cannon rumbles, so must the cannon be lit. Repeatedly.


(At least no one decided to shoot Betsy's favorite broom into the bay this year.)



The pit. In some places, it might be used for a pig. Others, clams or lobsters. Here, beans and moose.






No lobsters this year, but we did pull a pretty hefty run of salmon and crab legs. Once you dive into crab legs, you realize how wonderful the meat is—and why it's so expensive... it's damned difficult to get enough out of them!


As the night (and beer) wore on, the evening turned to a perfect color. Minus, of course, the mosquitoes.

bloggin' the Fourth

6:40 a.m. — Awakened by cannon blast.

7:30 a.m. — Finally drag tail out of bed after Banana has checked the shore to make sure it's still there.

8:25 a.m. — Walk Reilly over to Edgewater to thank the owner of said cannon for the wake-up call. He has already set it off one more time since then. Owner's reaction: "Serves you right for sleeping in that long."

11:45 a.m. — Banana and other kids playing down on the rocks at Edgewater. Another dad informs me that the cannon owner and the others have been up since four working on the coal pit. I feel both envious of their drive, and glad that I managed a couple extra hours.

12:15 p.m. — Banana enters into heavy playtime with two other girls at a house above the shore road and Route 1. I begin to feel sad that we are leaving tomorrow.

3:00 p.m. — Cooling heels at the house in advance of The Party. No cannon blasts in a couple of hours.

3:15 p.m. — Banana and grandmére go up to the field to pick blueberries. Mind you: when I was young, the wild blueberries didn't ripen until August.

4:00 p.m. — The cannon goes off. The party has begun.

gentrification woes

It occurred to me yesterday, as we drove into Southwest Harbor to catch the Cranberry Island ferry, that gentrification ultimately destroys a place—or at least risks changing a place irretrievably. The thought hit as I watched a late-model Mercedes SUV pass an old man walking his dogs. The SUV belonged to the new Southwest Harbor, the town that has evolved as newcomers looked for new places with the appropriate "character." In this case, character comes in the form of real working fishermen and other year-round residents. Of course, as money pours in and Southwest Harbor becomes the new Northeast Harbor (beautiful burg that hasn't been a "working" place in years), the people who created that character (that old man with his working pants, massive white beard, and aging mutts, for example) are crowded out.

The flip side of this equation happens in towns like Winter Harbor. Winter Harbor has its fair share of moneyed summer communities nearby, but it is very much a working town that has been hit hard by the ups and downs of the past ten years, including the closure of the nearby naval base. The rough patches were exacerbated when Roxanne Quimby came in with grand plans to gentrify the town and make it into a "destination." Central to the plans were a massive restaurant built at the center of town. The place was designed and built to stellar specifications, and was designed to become the flagship restaurant for her thirty-something son and his chef-girlfriend. Unfortunately, running a restaurant on the coast of Maine wasn't their bag, and when they tried to turn management and part-ownership over to new people, the beautiful restaurant proved to be too costly to run. It didn't help that the place stood no chance of connecting with most of the year-round population. Result: a multi-million dollar white elephant at the heart of a town that's already holding on by its callused fingertips.

Little Tunk & Schoodic Point

I decided to do a few more repeats of last year, including swimming at Little Tunk and running around on the rocks at Schoodic Point. While the water in Frenchmans Bay has become increasingly (and disturbingly) polluted, the protected inland waters remain deliciously clear. As perfect a day as this turned out to be, it was at least partly a surprise, then, to arrive at Little Tunk and find it completely deserted. Pretty soon, other people showed up, but not before I'd had the chance to enjoy a local brew with my sandwich.



From there, it was on to Schoodic Point. We stopped at Grindstone Neck of Maine to pick up a few varieties of smoked salmon and scallops. Their selection is comparable with Sullivan Harbor Farms' smoked salmon (etcetera), and I've been meaning to investigate. Stay tuned for a report once I get my hands on some decent bagels. All that said... sheesh... we headed out to Schoodic Point, the mainland extension of Acadia National Park to run around on the rocks.





Later, we returned home to find one of the lowest tides I can remember. (A note on memories and this place: I'll write more as I have the energy. Which I do not tonight.) In no time, we were headed down to the old granite pile to look for starfish with the kids staying down there. We were lucky to find a few, lucky because there is a lot more sediment up in the bay, more scummy residue, and oddly enough piles of mussel shells collected in places where there never were mussel shells before. At least we found a small collection to look at...

Little Cranberry, 2008 — photoblogging

As we did last year, we took the boat out to Little Cranberry today. We did, however, have quite a bit more time to explore the island on this visit. The lupine were in bloom and the vegetable gardens were starting to really come in. Some of the new produce went into our lunch at the Isleford Dock restaurant—stellar mussels, excellent clam chowder, baby green salads, and a surprisingly good grilled cheese for Banana. That said, I'm exhausted, so pictures will have to suffice tonight...

artifacts

This morning, Banana was up and about very early. We went down to the shore, and trotted back up for breakfast after a bit. Once she'd eaten, she got very tired and climbed into my arms. She was warm—not burning, but definitely not a normal temperature either. I asked my mother whether we had a thermometer in the house. She said she wasn't sure and went to rummage around around in the bathroom. She returned, saying all we had was an old mercury thermometer, and put this box on the table in front of me.



Given the design, typography, and materials, I would have to guess that the package dated from the forties—perhaps even before my grandparents built this house in the early fifties. that guess is helped by the small mark branding the thermometer as a Rexall product. Given the effort to build and brand the Rexall name in the late forties, the timing seems right.

On opening the box, the discovery became even more interesting. Both the manufacturer's mark (Brooklyn!) and the numbers appear to have been hand-painted and hand-etched. It is nearly impossible to imagine any mass market product that has such detail applied in this day and age.




This kind of direct connection to history is unique, I think, to summer homes built in the era when families could truly "summer" in a whole other place than they lived the other nine or ten months of the year. In the cases of some towns along the coast, that meant simply transplanting an entire echelon of society for a few months, i.e. Baltimore money summered on one point while Boston money summered on another point. In the cases of communities such as ours, that meant mixing centuries of local history (families with deep regional ties) with lives lived elsewhere.

The end result is that you find homes filled with artifacts like six decade-old thermometers, spice tins filled with long-stale paprika, toasters that should have died years ago, a grandmother's favorite work gloves, and generations-worth of collected beach treasures. In the case of toasters and appliances, you might feel guilty replacing them because they have nostalgia going for them, but the reality is they continue to work well because they have only been used two months a year for decades. (It is this way with the waffle maker I long since appropriated from the house.) In the case of spice tins, you don't bother replacing them; you simply supplement with fresh spices bought in smaller bulk quantities. The old tins remain because, well, they've always been there.

All this said, I should point out that there are at least two kinds of summer homes. There is the functional sort—cabins, we might call these—where order and nostalgia take a backseat to kids' feet made dirty and wet from trips to the beach. Chaos rules brilliantly in these homes. Then there is the nostalgic sort—cottages, we might call them—where preservation takes precedence and dirt is quickly whisked away. Order rules calmly in these homes.

As I've gotten older and become a parent, I've struggled with what this means to me, whether it's just a nice perq of our family (our summer house) or whether it is a legacy that I must carry on in some way (our living history). I've come to understand (accept?) it as both, but I've also begun to think about how I want Banana to see the place. In the long-run, I suspect my vision may may be noisier than history.

babies!

Sunday's Times Magazine ran an interesting piece on the dropping birthrate in Europe. Granted, there are concerns about the death of towns or the drop-off in a society's population that are worth discussing, but what struck me about the piece is the implication that a society must reproduce at or above its current population. Or more to the point: the implication that our societies must continue to grow. I suppose it's a reasonable assumption to be made by a society in which average family size continues to grow. The fallacy comes, however, when you consider questions of an exploding population—how people will continue to feed and be housed in an ever-more-stressed environment?

I wonder about such things whenever I see a family with two kids about to add a third, three kids about to add a fourth, and beyond. Granted, I would never tell any of my friends who do have more than two children that they should have made a different choice, but I still wonder about the long-term prognosis of a society where the norm is becoming R + X (replacement plus extras). When we've gone from 2.1 children as an average to 2.9, mustn't all of our institutions, stores, cars, and so forth continue to grow? Aren't they already expanding past the point of sustainability? If that's the case, what should our long-term prognosis be?

Just thinking out "loud"...

travelin' observations

A couple of quick notes...

• Why is it that certain older couples begin to dress alike—same shirts, same shorts, and so forth? Is it so they can distinguish each other in the crowds at outlet malls?
  
• On the topic of outlet malls, Freeport was busy yesterday, though the crowds did seem a little lighter than usual. Also notable were the number of signs advertising sales. You know things are bad when factory outlets begin deep-discounting. L.L. Bean was also advertising thirty percent off sale prices, a highly unusual move for them too.
  
• Wilco over the sound system at Whole Foods... um... I am part of a demographic now.

That said, this is what the road looks like when you get away from the traffic:

travelin' 2

There was definitely a lot of this over the weekend. Saturday, I opted not to to do the (potentially slower) cutaway through smaller roads in Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware. As a result, we ended up with a lot of high-speed merges at very slow speeds. By the time we got to New Jersey, I was fried, Banana was cranky, and nothing seemed better than cooling our heels there an extra day. Our single adventure en route involved a stop at an old-school Baltimore seafood joint.

It was the sort of place where the walls are hung with pictures of local notables from decades past who have written nice notes to the now-deceased owner about their wonderful dining experiences. The sort of place where I was—by a generation—the youngest patron there, and Banana may have been the first child in ages. Besides a few obvious regulars, there was the requisite table of blue-hairs enjoying manhattans and white wine before their house special crab cakes. Presiding over it all were two of the sketchiest wait-people I've seen in a while. Their white shirts and black pants were mostly clean. The man's teeth were so bad that Banana even talked about them later, and the woman was in that indeterminate window of thirtiesh-with-a-very-rough-history. All that aside, the crab cake was very, very good. And very, very large. Really. A good two and a half inches thick. All crab, no breading, just mayo, eggs and Old Bay seasoning to hold the thing together. In the end, Banana and I did just fine sharing the crab cake, and it made for a good break between traffic jams.

Fast forward to Monday... We hit the road early Monday morning after a day chilling out with the cousins in Montclair. I'd prepped Banana the day before that I was buying food at Whole Foods for breakfast and for the the rest of the trip. Though I probably didn't save any money with the Whole Foods run vs. fast food on the road, I can report that we lunched on caprese sandwiches—fresh mozzarella, roma tomatoes, prosciutto, and pesto on excellent crusty bread assembled at a rest stop—instead of anything prepackaged. When it came to snacks, we had cherries and local blueberries, among other things.

That's all well and good, and the rest of the drive to Maine was uneventful. Unfortunately, I am now certain that Banana is fighting something. When we arrived, she was still moody, then she rejected a smoked salmon appetizer—this from a girl who never rejects any kind of salmon. Then she decided she was too tired for dinner. As she fell asleep, she was sweaty and feverish. Hmmmm...

travelin'

Monstrous traffic on I95 today kept us delayed and turned a five and a half hour drive into almost eight hours. Made a brief stop for lunch in Baltimore at an old-school seafood joint. Full account to follow soon.

UPDATE: Terrific, low-key day with cousins in Montclair. Banana's been a bit of a challenge, and I'm starting to wonder if she's feeling all right—low energy and low appetite are not her usual bag. Full account to come after we get to Maine tomorrow... and to answer May's question: we will only be staying until next weekend. Such is the workaday life now.

Friday Fun - the late edition

It's been a crazy week between work, play while Banana was with Banana mére, and preparations for the trip to Maine tomorrow. There were some bright spots, though, including this particular contribution to the Friday Fun fun. Stay tuned for some travel blogging — more time, woohoo! — and a reintroduction of the Freddie the Frog blog. Banana needs to stay on the edge, right?

a sad day

Today's ruling by the Supreme Court should not surprise me. The court has been pushed so far to the right, so far in the direction of "strict constructionism" that the results are likely to stay with us for generations. Still, even though it shouldn't surprise me, the pain in my shoulder reminds me every day of the effects of readily available guns on our society. I survived not because I had a gun to protect myself, but because I was lucky; others with guns to protect themselves have not been so lucky. The self-defense argument means nothing.

political geek meets design geek

This is very cool.


22nd Amendment from Andrew Sloat on Vimeo.

from the "I'm getting too old for this" annals...

That's it. I'm getting old--too old to bounce back from a weekend with pool time, a party, and a show.

The National @ The National

The band at the eponymous venue was—to put it bluntly—excellent. The energy and orchestration pulled out some interesting rethinking of tracks from their last two albums—which constituted most of the show.

That said, the eponymous theater is a hell of a space. But it still takes a good band to make anything work...

Other notes to follow when I'm not on the verge of passing out...

Forest Hill Farmers Market, again

So, this week's haul was a little smaller since Banana will be staying with Banana mére for the week. That said, the purchases included:

• Raspberries, black raspberries, and blackberries (as Chris Vaughn noted, the latter were probably not grown in VA. Bummer.
  
• Green leaf lettuce
  
• Carrots
  
• Baby radishes
  
• Coffee beans
  
• Sunflowers

My apologies to Jesse at Faith Farms for not getting any of the ribs she pulled out of the cooler for us. I had a moment when I realized, wisely, that we wouldn't be able to use any new meat for almost a month.

a frog's life

So, Leapy the tree frog has (or rather had) a waterfall. The motor burned out recently, and I decided to replace it with a different kind. It was the same size and appeared to have the same connector for the hose. The replacement also claimed to be more powerful and be able to withstand an owner's occasional forgetfulness about filling the fountain reservoir. The only problem: the connection wasn't the same.

I tried to make it work by cutting the tube. No dice. So I returned the pump and headed to Petsmart to get the exact replacement. Great. Problem solved. Except it wasn't. In trying to make the other pump work, I cut off an essential centimeter of hose. Now the new, correct pump won't sit properly.

This means that my quick, supposedly more efficient fix has forced us either to replace the whole waterfall (three times as expensive) or to let Leapy go without a fountain.

The lesson? Sometimes we break things by manufacturing solutions rather than accepting the obvious answer.

Friday Fun - a cracked Muppets edition

Light week for the blog. Heavy week for work and schedule shifts with Banana going to camp—and catching the bus at 7:45 a.m.

I'll try to make up for it later, but in the meantime... this may be one of the funniest bits ever from The Daily Show. Watch it. Seriously.

energy crisis surprises

Or not... It was pretty much guaranteed that this was coming:

"With gasoline now over $4 a gallon, tomorrow he will explicitly call on Congress to also pass legislation lifting the congressional ban on safe, environmentally friendly offshore oil drilling," Perino said.

Because everyone knows that an uncertain fix that's not likely to pay off (if it does) in the short term will fix the supply-and-demand problems. My favorite phrase in the piece? "Sensible standards of environmental protection."

monday muppets

Well, since I missed out on Friday Fun, here's a bit of mania to get the Monday going. Without further ado, Marvin Suggs...

milestones

Banana gave me the best Father's Day presents ever...

First swim:


And first lost tooth:

Forest Hill Farmers Market, again

The market continues to grow. This week, a new farm and a pasta maker arrived. There were, of course, new craft vendors, but I have yet to be drawn to any of the craftspeople.

We're well into the growing season now, with shifts in what is in season, as well as what has been affected by the intense, early heat. Lettuces, strawberries, and asparagus are going out of season. Cucumbers, summer squashes, various berries, carrots and tomatoes are coming in. The success of the market has, however, taken its toll on some of the vendors. Faith Farms, for instance, has found that they can't keep up with demand. They're not unhappy about it, but it has forced them to rethink their business a little bit. It's a good problem to have. And it forces the buyer to be more creative — rather than coming with a set list of items, sometimes you have to cook with what's available.

That said, our market haul this week:

• baby lettuces, probably the last for a little while
  
• scallions
  
• baby carrots — last week's were phenomenal
  
• mixed basket of squash
  
• cucumbers
  
• sunflowers — Banana's treat
  
• locally roasted organic Yergacheffe — Blanchard's is roasting some really nice beans these days, but as a Rostov's regular, I feel like I'm cheating.
  
• a whole chicken — spoiler alert for vegan friends: it was slaughtered yesterday.
  
• raspberries
  
• the first tomatoes of the season
  
• green beans

It's a decent haul. We're still not being as adventuresome as I'd like, but I'm still limited in my cooking time these days. And it's hard to tell what even a foodie 6-year old will eat, sometimes.

research

One of the best parts of any creative project--whether design or writing--is researching random components and ideas. In this case, I'm about to try a layout based on the phrenological map. Sometimes work really is fun.

night terrors

Or something very much like that. And growing pains.

I was continuing the random elements of life--laundry, Bushmills, scribbling out ideas for a project at work, dishes, and so forth--when I heard a loud "No!" come from Banana's room. She was tossing and saying "No" over and over again. I woke her after a few minutes, deciding it was better to break whatever dream she was having, and got her up to go to the bathroom. I figured she would want to go to my bed afterwards--a habit we've mostly broken now--and wanted to avoid the possibility of potty accidents.

When she climbed into my bed, she started crying again. I asked what was wrong, and she held her leg and said, "It just hurts."

"Oh, you're having growing pains," I said.

"I don't like growing and having pains," she said with every bit of the attitude you'd expect from a little girl woken up in the middle of the night by achy shins. Then she rolled over and went back to sleep.

Fun stuff, this solo parent thing.

Life Lessons – a bit of growing up, and other tid bits

Like much of the eastern half of the country, the Richmond area has been boiling the past few days. Though I'm not a great fan of triple digit heat, I spent good chunks of Saturday and Sunday outside. Air conditioning felt great whenever I went inside, but I didn't feel compelled to be in the humidity- and temperature-controlled spaces.

Fast forward to this morning when I woke to find the temperature in the house at 81 degrees, and the central air was making no effort to kick on. The morning routine got thrown for a loop — of course — as I messed with the electronic thermostat, went in search of our breaker box, and frantically called the landlord. (Side note: these are the moments I am glad I'm not a homeowner yet.) The temperatures were slated to hit triple digits again, and I was worried about Reilly among other things. I also watched Banana's cheeks get pink, and her brow get a little sweaty even after a cool shower.

I toughed my way through some obscenely hot summers in Boston and New York without AC. Some of those nights on Fresh Pond Parkway, on West Fourth Street, on Degraw Street were more sweat than sleep, but I never fully broke down and took the step to air conditioning. Now, I apparently can't live without it.

Sure. I sit here writing, not feeling particularly bad, but I'm sweating. And I can feel the air trickling in from the outside, as much as ten degrees cooler than the 88 degrees the thermostat currently reads. There's a primal, martyrish feeling to toughing it through, but the reality is that I had to remind myself that we could make it until tomorrow when the new motor would be installed, that we didn't have to call friends and stay with them. What a wimp living in the south has made me... Sheesh.

***********

Banana continues to be a bit of an emotional roller coaster. She wants more Mommy time, maybe a little less divorce still. Ah well... On the bright side, Banana Mére and I talked about the situation today. We're on the same page as maintaining the stability on the basic schedule, with a little more time shifted to mommy-daughter time. Talking helps most of the time.

***********

I paid $4.19 for regular gas this weekend. A basic birthday card cost almost $4. Bit by bit, I see my grocery bills going up — even when we shop at Kroger. I have this queasy feeling that things are going to get worse before they get better.

catching up on the weekend

Richmond hit record high temperatures this weekend, and at least one of my market finds was among the casualties of the heat. Strawberries at the end of their growing cycles just can't handle any length of time in the ninety-plus degree heat my berries were subjected to. By the time I got them into the refrigerator, the majority of the quart had begun to rot. Thankfully, they were the only casualties. The rest of the market finds included:

• pac choi
  
• arugula
  
• summer squash
  
• small cucumbers — very spicy!
  
• baby carrots — tender and flavorful, a revelation in such a common item; the grower who produced these also grew some remarkable micro-greens
  
• basil
  
• green garlic — lent an unusual spice to a batch of pesto
  
• eggs
  
• goat cheese
  
• sirloin tip steak
  
• flowers — to make up for the bouquet I neglected to get Banana a week ago at her dance recital
  

Friday Fun - A Mighty Wind edition

Classics that came up in a conversation earlier today...

rough mornings

Nobody said single parenthood after divorce would be easy. Regardless, the rough times always seem to catch me off-guard. Lately, there have been bunch of rough mornings. It's partly the age—five and three-quarters is no picnic—but it's also partly the situation.

Still, understanding that and understanding that empathy is essential doesn't make it any easier when the kid is, without warning, lying on her bed crying and saying, "I want mommy." Or saying, "It's not fair that you're divorced. It makes me feel sad when I'm at other kids' houses and they have their daddy and their mommy." Nothing has quite prepared me for what to say or do at those moments. Anybody have any suggestions?

*sigh*

Back to work.

speeches

Watching the Clinton and Obama speeches tonight, I can't help but notice the shift in rhetoric. Both candidates have shifted to a conciliatory tone that honors their accomplishments. To wit: "I am a better candidate for having had the honor to compete with Hillary Rodham Clinton." Fascinating.

********

10:31 update: Obama just won me over.

********

Crazy coincidence: "What Did I Do (To Be So Black and Blue)?" just came on my iTunes. For those who don't get the reference, look up Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison.

Saturday Market-ing

The Forest Hill Market keeps growing. Each week new craft and food vendors are popping up. There's even a woman who clips dogs' nails. The farm produce has also continued to expand as more vegetables come into season. We're starting to see squash and cucumbers. Carrots are available, but sparse. Asparagus, broccoli and strawberries are still showing up. The greens continue to be phenomenal, with wide varieties of lettuce, chards, kales, and various spicy greens. We were down one meat vendor this week, but they aren't the one I usually buy from.

That said, this week's haul:

• broccoli
  
• strawberries
  
• asparagus
  
• two kinds of lettuce
  
• Tuscan kale
  
• English peas
  
• pork chops
  
• chorizo
  
• ribs
  
• strawberry jam (on a taste, possibly the best I've ever had, and well worth the $6.50 for a large jar)
  

Dinner tonight is probably at a restaurant because of the ballet performance, but tomorrow, we will be slow-cooking the ribs on the grill. They should perfectly accompany one of the Villa Appalachia wines I have. There also promises to be grilled zucchini and something made with an awesome green garlic head. I plan to pore over Alice Waters The Art of Simple Food for more ideas.

But back to the market for a moment. What also continues to impress me are the numbers of people flocking to the market. They grow and get a little more diverse each week. Clearly, Richmond needed (and continues to need) this kind of organic (not necessarily referring to food) sense of community.

future eye

I finally managed a couple of decent posts tonight. (Please be sure to scroll down for them.) I've been thinking a lot about the future of this blog, my writing, my various interests, and my professional life. That said, I want to continue to focus this blog on advertising, politics, parenting, food, music, and whatever else piques my interest, but I also have the urge to get back to my work on Coney Island.

To that end, I've begun to think through a second blog built around my research and writing on Brooklyn and Coney Island. Ultimately, I'd like to make this a project that evolves beyond a blog into its own site. I see it as one way to bring together my work as a designer and my yen for writing. Beyond that, the more I've thought about Coney (and New York as a whole) at the turn of the century, the more I've become convinced that words alone cannot encompass the whole story.

Any thoughts and reactions are welcome.

life as a ballet dad

Banana's ballet recital is tomorrow. She is so excited for it that she was still still practicing bits of her routine as we finally arrived at home after the dress rehearsal. I should note that our return home was delayed by close to an hour because she wanted to see piece after piece of the rehearsal. It was, after all, the first chance to see all of the classes pieces put together as part of the whole production. Frankly, I would have let her stay through the whole thing had it not been 7:30 and past dinner time.

In any case... The performance, or rather the rehearsal, is worth noting. Rather than do a simple little recital where each class performs its rehearsed piece(s), Banana's school puts on a full production. The husband and wife who own the school write a story, rent costumes, and perform as part of the whole pageant. It's all a bit cheesy, and jogs my own memories of doing (a lot) of theater. Regardless, there is something truly fun about these kids from 4 to 14 genuinely enjoying themselves while also becoming serious about what they're doing.


This is a feeling I got from theater which I did for a few years in high school and college, but I never got the same feeling from music. No. For the years that I studied music from 7 to 17, I practiced as needed and I learned my "stuff." The reality, however, is that I never came home desperate to play. Practicing never appealed to me. I did it because it was part of what was expected and fostered.

This evening, I watched the kids and thought about these memories. Two daughters of the husband and wife (both former professional dancers) were integral parts of the show. At first, I wondered if they were doing it because they wanted to or because it was expected of them. After a while, though, I stopped wondering. They were both clearly talented. The older one seemed to crave the stage, and she kept practicing her moves. The younger one called out corrections to her mother's choreography. They clearly enjoyed what they were doing, just as Banana clearly enjoyed watching all of the other performances and practices. Just as she asked whether she would be doing these dances in a year or five.

From the get-go, I have resolved that I will not push Banana to do anything she does not want to do, and I will support her in anything she wants to do. Tonight brought home that resolve even more.

********

Sidenote: It is strange to be one of the few dads (and the only single dad) in a roomful of wealthy stay-at-hom moms. More on that later.

taking the brain down a notch

I just turned off Countdown with Keith Olberman and flipped to a DVR recording of Patty Griffin from Artists Den. The four-day week seems long and taxing, and frankly I'm sick of the chatter about Obama vs. Clinton and McLellan's take-down of the administration. After all, I don't think even hardcore Clinton supporters will be surprised at this point to see Obama win—rather than be handed—the nomination.

As for the former press secretary, well, that's a fresher, more interesting topic at the moment. I'm inclined to think that the administration misunderestimated Mr. McLellan as much as the rest of us did. His answers were so often ham-handed obfuscations or obvious smokescreens that it became easy to think he was just hung out as the fall guy. The doughy, mild fall guy. Worse for the administration, however, is the fact that they must have thought that his Texas-rooted loyalty would hold with him even after he'd been thrown under the bus.

Of course he hadn't developed any opinions in all of those meetings. Of course his all-access pass (rooted in his Texas history) hadn't afforded him the chance to speak the truth to power. Of course their very own press-bury dough boy would never turn on them and pull back the curtains the way others had. And if he did, no one would listen to him, right? Hell, even publishers didn't believe he would deliver any real dirt.

And, my oh my, they were all wrong. Instead, what we get is the boy pointing at the emperor with no clothes, Toto pulling down the curtain. We get an honest-to-god take down of the administration. It's not the first (nor is it likely to be the last) take down of this crew, but somehow this one stings more. They can't say—as they did with Clarke and others—that he wasn't privy to everything. They can't say that he was just an outsider—this man took it on the chin every day for his old friends. All they're left with are ad hominem attacks (also, not a first) on him as a disgruntled former employee.

As nice as it is to see the curtain pulled back, however, this book is just one in a series, a series that isn't likely to end any time soon. We've heard all of it before in different ways, from different perspectives. We will hear it again, the tale of the distastrous Bush years. Sadly, none of it will change the past eight years.

When I was in Ireland, Paris and elsewhere in 2001, people repeatedly asked me why we elected Bush. I said I'd voted for Gore, and that a majority had, in fact, voted for Gore. (How that translated to Bush becoming president was a more difficult explanation.) The Europeans saw then what 49% of Americans didn't see—that Bush was an ignorant play-cowboy. They saw what friends (including Brian and Amy over at Incertus) and I saw as we watched the tide turn in late 2000. We hoped that it wouldn't be as bad as we feared. And now, in the echo of Mclellan's voice and many other voices, it is clear that every fear we had has come true in spades.

**********

On a side note, I have a marketing suggestion for John McCain as he runs for Bush's third term. He should ask—over and over—whether we are better now than we were eight years ago. Building a platform on this should guarantee him the votes of the 27% who still support Bush.

Friday Fun - classic edition

Scatman Crothers... oh yeaaahhhh.

more food absurdity

I picked this up off Consumerist today. Apparently, big meat producers are fighting efforts by Creekstone Farms in Kansas to test all of its beef for mad cow disease. Or rather, the Bush administration has asked a Federal appeals court to prohibit Creekstone from testing its cows. The logic behind this is the same logic used in Monsanto's lawsuits against dairies in Maine, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere. The argument is rooted in the idea that saying their cows are free of mad cow (or that a farmer's milk is free of RBST or RGBH) implies that their "product" may not be as safe.

This kind of behavior is not without precedent in U.S. agribusiness. For instance, in the late 1890s and early 1900s, the USDA waged a trade war with several European countries over agricultural imports and exports. In one case, the U.S. trade representative went so far as to argue that our beef preserved with boric acid was healthier than German beef cured with salt. His logic? That every expert knew that the effects of salt were more dangerous.

In any case, at what point do we as a society—a political and commercial system—do we stop mortgaging our individual and societal good in favor of profit? At what point, do mass-producing corporations stop trying to shut down local producers and start trying to live up to their standards? Is it feasible to envision an agricultural system where the government protects the citizens rather than the corporations?

irony, or something

Yesterday afternoon, my neighbor Jack and I spent a couple hours enjoying the sun and drinking beer on the deck at a local brewpub. In the course of our conversation, we got into the question of the sorts of values parents teach their children. More specifically, I explained that I was trying to teach Banana the value of taking care of things—clothes and other possessions. Knowing when to put a smock on over a nice dress or use grubby clothes. Knowing when to put a bicycle away so it doesn't get rained upon. Caring for our house and the things in it. It is a habit I have worked to be better at in my thirties than I was in my twenties.

But then this happens: I left my pool cue at the bar where I played pool last evening. Completely forgot the case was on the back of my chair. When I got home and realized what had happened, I decided get the number and call the bar to have a friend put it in the office. Then I got distracted and forgot to call. I remembered again this morning and called. As you might expect, the guy who was opening couldn't find the case. The best I can hope at this point is that one of my friends saw it and put it in a safe place.

The cue? It's a custom-made cue that I bought the year before Banana was born. There isn't another like it in the world. And I left it without thinking.

I am an idiot.

Friday Fun

Bowie and the Conchords. Classics.

muppet revelations!

I've posted what I remember as the original Mahna Mahna before, but I was wrong. There was an earlier version in 1969. It doesn't have Kermit or the psychedelic pink creatures and the Mahna Mahna dude looks more beat than hippie. Still, there is no better way to start a day...



Thanks to DaddyTypes for pointing me to it.

jumping on the viral train

This little video love letter to the Mac is spreading all over the interwebs. Just thought I'd add to the delicious contagion. Enjoy.

toothiness

This weekend, Banana and I engaged in a bit of extreme consumerism. We each picked up a few new outfits and new shoes. Call it yet another foray into wearing both parenting hats. Anyway, she has been excitedly putting on new clothes each of the past few days — and lightly bemoaning her school's ban on sleeveless shirts. The most exciting part of the day was not, however, the shopping.

As the afternoon was wearing on and we had returned from the mall to take care of a few small fun things in Carytown — she got to buy a new doll outfit with the change we had saved — we stopped at Can Can for a snack. I eschewed Can Can when it first opened in 2005 because it seemed to be trying too hard to be a bit of Paris stuck in the middle of Richmond. Over the past few years, however, the place has grown on me. Their food and service are consistently excellent, and it is one of the few places I can sit at the bar with Banana. The bartenders are friendly and attentive, and there are rarely smokers in the times we might linger for a snack and a loaf of bread.

So that afternoon, we stopped to cool our heels for a bit. Banana got soda water and a bread basket, and I ordered an Oberon. We chatted happily with the bartender for a few minutes, then Banana said, "Daddy, my teeth hurt." "Which ones?" I asked. She pointed at the bottom front teeth. I reached down and wiggled one of the teeth, and my little girl's eyes got as wide and bright as the summer sun. She started giggling, then wiggled the tooth herself, then giggled some more. By the time we left, the bartenders and women sitting next to us had all heard about her loose tooth. I'm not sure I've ever seen her so genuinely excited about anything.

Friends have asked what the going rate for the tooth fairy is. It was a quarter when I was a kid, so I'm guessing a dollar is about right now. Inflation, y'know...

The Sunday Evening while-I'm-doing-laundry-and-watching-the-baseball-game-edition

There are some full posts I've wanted to do, but the weekend has sort of melted away in a flurry of consumer stupidity. That said, here's the abbreviated version...

• My last post on the new growers market in Forest Hill Park has been a fairly popular hit on the blog. It's not surprising if you are in Richmond and take the time to visit the market on Saturday morning—the crowds are impressive. The result has been an increase in the number of vendors, and an increasing sense that Richmond is catching up with cities that have established green market traditions (like New York, ahem...).
  
  
• Our market haul this week: 2 new varieties of lettuce, multi-colored swiss chard, pork chops (pastured), ground beef (pastured), snap peas, flowers, strawberries, pac choi, and asparagus. Cost (including snacks and coffee): $45. I've already fed Banana two amazing meals off this.
  
  
• Joining a CSA would ensure that we are guaranteed a certain haul, and yet I haven't bothered to get on the list for any. Why am I such a slacker?
  
  
• Broad Appetit—Richmond's new locavore festival in a city obsessed with festivals—came off today in spite of intermittent rain. There was a strong turnout and many restaurants began to run out of items within an hour. Sadly, I didn't get to enjoy it as much as I'd hoped... something about trying to do it with multiple almost-six year olds.
  
  
• Changing gears... Clinton needs to drop out. She cannot possibly be so tone-deaf as to miss the momentum in Obama's favor or blame it entirely on the media. Ultimately, though, she should drop out because of comments like the remarks about white, working-class voters and because she has been shot in the foot too often by stupid moves made by her handlers.
  

Back to laundry duty.

richmond eats - 2M Mediterranean Market

The northside of Richmond has never been an area I knew particularly well, but since beginning the new gig, I've been investigating the eating options up here. Fortunately there are a few that step beyond the usual chain fare. One in particular that popped up on my radar is 2M Mediterranean Market & Deli. It's a dive-y little place in a dive-y little strip mall. Richmonders will know it as the one on Staples Mill with the old Ukrops—in this town, the local Ukrops grocery store chain offers constant landmarks.

All dive-y character aside, the food that the Bosnian owner turns out is excellent. The kefta and lamb shawarma are excellent, served on long flatbread with excellent tahini, pickles and the usual lettuce and tomato. His gyro is a little smaller, though still a good portion. So far, only the falafel has been less than exceptional. I'm a fan of freshly made and fried falafel, like the crispy nuggets I used to gorge on in New York. Anyway, his falafel are made in the morning and reheated as needed. As a result, they're dried out a bit and don't quite sparkle with garlic and parsley the way they should His hummus and tabouleh, however, are stellar. the taboulleh is full of fresh parsley and lemon, and the hummus was so good Banana scarfed it down when I brought some home. Good stuff.

On the wall above the register are the usual series of glowing local reviews. One of which mentioned that the owner was planning to open a "real" restaurant soon. I asked him about it, and his answer was "not so soon. Too expensive, you know." Indeed. Thankfully, his current business is still doing well, and considering the amount of food for the money, it's definitely not too expensive.

Friday Fun - the "really?" edition

Fraggle Rock is being brought back. Really?

brand fascination

More times than I can count in my career in advertising and media I have been involved in conversations about branding and brands. As you might expect, the tenor of that conversation depends on the client-in-question. One common rule I think you can establish, though, is that most clients do not really understand the difference between brand and branding. The two are often confused for each other, and though they are part of the same overall picture, they are not the same thing.

Essentially, a brand is the identity you create. In visuals and copy, it is what becomes your identifying mark. Branding is different; it is the feeling evoked by your brand. And it is a great deal more complex.

You can always create a great, memorable visual identity. Think Target or L.L. Bean. The thing is a great visual identity doesn't create the brand identity. Or more to the point, the visual doesn't create people's feelings about the brand. The company, instead, needs to connect with people's experiences and emotions. For example, Target has done such a good job of building its branding that many people (including me) think of that big red bullseye whenever a question of essentials from socks to shampoo to toilet paper comes to mind, and the biggest consumerists may even make the leap from essentials to figuring out what else they need (or want) from the store.

While I've found this a difficult concept to communicate in the past, the WSJ pointed to a site today where you can see what people's perceptions of brands are. Considering the extent to which consumerism and branding shape our society, it's a pretty interesting little exercise.

teh stupids!

The tag on this post at Wonkette reads "Fiction Writing Rendered Useless." Yep. Pretty much. The callow stupidity of our president will never ever fail to boggle my mind.

monday fun

This morning, I was thinking about the Electric Company. And I was thinking about how I want to introduce Banana to the show. And then Gawker puts this up...



Must be something in the chill, damp air hugging the East coast.

more ad stupidity

Nobody ever said ads had to be true to their market, right? In fact, sometimes it's better if an ad creates an aspirational feeling rather than depicting reality, right? Right. As Exhibit A, I offer this page from this week's Target circular.

Beautiful girl? Check. Aspirational look on face encouraging shoppers to feel good about themselves? Check. Correlation between sale items and visuals? Um, not so much. Why? Take a look at the product just below the headline... the weight-loss product. Yeah, and the smoking cessation lozenges below it. Oh, and the prenatal vitamins at the top of that column. Yeah... the real target here doesn't look much like the model.

selling god

My buddy Jack and I hiked out to Short Pump Town Center this afternoon for a bit of retail roaming. Short Pump TC is one of the local examples of the reinvention of malls as "lifestyle centers" — an evolution that can inspire more than a few diatribes itself. Short Pump TC is also home to our local Apple store, and I'm in the market for a new MacBook Pro. (The Air calls, but I will not answer that call yet.)

Anyway, as we're roaming around and on our way to having a beer at one of the mall restaurants, or "concepts" in the lingo of mid- to high-end corporate chain restaurants, we stuble across a store that is having its grand opening. It takes nothing more than the words "Christian Fashion" to stop me.


The store is named Not Of This World—"NOTW" in rakish and grunge-cool typography. Very hip of them. The clothes from what I could see all followed the example of the mannequins in the window. The styles and look of the store fall somewhere between Hot Topic and Urban Outfitters. This is a long way from Thomas Kinkade and Zondervan Bookstores. This is hip, downtown cool like the church near my house which bills itself more as a worship lifestyle center than as a "traditional" church.

Leaving alone my belief that spirituality is should be quietly revered rather than crassly commercialized, this strikes me as one more effort to foist a brand—and it really is a brand in this case—of Christianity on society. The religion (specifically Christian) section at Barnes & Noble continues to expand while a whole subculture of films and music continues to build and creep in around the edges of popular culture. Our political discourse, international relations and military actions begin to take on the rhetoric of faith (again, a very specific faith). What I want to know is this: at what point do secularism and plurality begin to push back?

always look on the bright side

Heard this morning on NPR: "They were practically begging us to report on the positive aspects of polygamy."

It's half comic, half sad to watch as polygamists scramble to normalize their public image in the wake of the raid of the FLDS compound in Texas. Somehow, though, I don't think their efforts will do much to reshape public opinion--or more likely the media memes.

Friday Fun - old photo edition

Sail Wagon, Brooklyn (LOC)
Originally uploaded by The Library of Congress

Seriously, if you're as much of an old photo geek as I am, go check out the Library of Congress gallery. Seriously.

And foodies should go here.

Whitesnake on NPR

"Here I go Again" as interlude music on Morning Edition? Really? Really. Isn't that another sign of the apocalypse.

Forest Hill Farmers Market

Two new growers markets opened in Richmond this weekend: The Lakeside Market (which I will investigate on Wednesday, its other day) and the Forest Hill Farmers Market. The latter is being run by the same folks who launched the Byrd House Market in Oregon Hill last year. They are pulling in some excellent growers—Victory and Amy's Farms, among others—and excellent meat producers.

Perhaps the most notable aspect thing I was was the community involvement. This was the first day of a market that had received some publicity, but had hardly been plastered everywhere. Still, the place was packed before nine-thirty, and some of the vendors had begun to run out of the stocks they'd brought. As the guy at Amy's told me, "Who knew it'd be this big? I guess we'll have to bring more next time. Selling out by nine-thirty is just crazy." Crazy indeed, until you factor in how desperate many people in Richmond have been for the opening of an honest-to-god Saturday morning farmers market.

Frankly, there's no substitute for the sense of community you feel at such markets. Whether you're in Leyden or Fayetteville or New York or—now—Richmond, the connection to community and food source is irreplaceable. You run into neighbors and co-workers; you develop relationships with the people who produce your food; you make a moral decision that connects you directly to the soil and air within your region. After all, I would far rather pay a little more to purchase my meat from the people who actually raised the animals than to pay a supermarket for meat that came—even in the case of the low organic varieties—from some generic farm a few thousand miles away. I'd rather pay the same for carrots or lettuce that were raised a few dozen miles away rather than a few thousand.

As much as we live in and cannot truly escape a consumerist society, making decisions like choosing local production and connections mitigates some of the evils of the market by channeling our dollars into the local economy and small business grounded in nearby soil rather than the silk-lined purses of the agribusinesses.*




* My fear about the success of markets here is that the agribusiness lobby is very, very strong in Virginia. I do not trust that the corporations won't make an effort to co-opt or—at the very least—hinder the markets and locavore movement here.

a good kind of tired.

There must be some kind of divide you cross as an adult. A moment when you begin to care more about very domestic responsibilities and let other "younger" aspects of life go. This weekend was one of those crossing moments for me.

Banana and I helped clean the pool we'll be joining this summer, and then we hunkered down for a several hours—between Saturday and Sunday—of yardwork. The net result of these choices is that I am tired to my bones in a way I haven't been since last summer. Nonetheless, the basil, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, and parsley have all been planted. The dianthus and pansies have been planted. The brick walks in back have been cleared of weeds and overgrowth, branches have been trimmed, and the mulch has been spread. I am now shopping for new furniture to put in our backyard and planning to get the lettuce in within the next few days.

The end result is a satisfying kind of exhaustion, a sense that we have made our small corner of the world a better, more organized place. Why is this news? It's not, really. It's just one more small part of my effort to take better control of and responsibility for my life and Banana's world.

Friday Fun - New York edition

Another moment of "I miss New York." Enjoy.

how mornings start sometimes...

I made my coffee as usual this morning and set it to brew while I hopped in the shower. When I went to pour a cup, I found coffee everywhere. Somehow the pot never made it out of the drying rack.

I guess I've got a few things on my mind.